Salamandridae
by familiarterritory
Summary: Steve Rogers is alone in this brave new world. Mallory Cohen is surrounded by people she's just met. They're both lonely. And they both want someone to rely on. Times aren't hard, but it's all overwhelming anyway. Steve/OC friendship/UST.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer: I don't own Marvel or any characters you recognize. I write this purely for my own pleasure.**

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**Chapter 1**

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_The Triskelion, Washington D.C._

_October 8th, 2013_

The first time Steve saw the Triskelion, he had not understood the gravity of the moment. All he'd been thinking about was getting inside. It hadn't been the first time he'd been to Washington D.C.—he'd made a trip there as the bond-selling Captain America in 1942—but he had no memory of the sweltering heat.

"D.C. was built on a swamp," Natasha had said blithely, looking his opposite in composure as he shed his leather jacket and wiped his forehead with the back of his hand. "It gets pretty steamy in the summertime."

It was the first of July. "Is it air-conditioned—_oh,_" he'd sighed when he opened the door for Nat and a rush of cold wind froze the sweat on his skin. "Thank God."

"C'mon, Cap," she'd said, coaxing him from the atrium into a glass elevator.

He was so distracted by the coolness that he hadn't noticed the hundreds of curious glances from the agents milling about, nor how the ceiling was made of glass and vaulted so high above him that it seemed almost pointless to have a roof at all. It was only after the hour-long meeting with Director Fury in his office, after he returned to the atrium without Natasha, clutching the keys to his new apartment that S.H.I.E.L.D. had set him up with, that he saw the glances and the sky. For such a secretive organization, it was uncomfortably open. He rushed to avoid the gawking.

After three months of running missions and coming to regular meetings with Fury, however, no one even blinked twice at Steve striding in in a t-shirt and sweatpants, a duffel bag slung across his body. He checked his watch to make sure he wasn't late to the training session that Nat suggested through text message. He wasn't, though he had no doubt that Nat was already in the gym. She was the only person he knew that was more punctual than he was, even if she'd just gotten back from an assignment.

"You took your time," she said when she heard him come into their regular training room, never ceasing her rapid-fire kicks on a punching bag. "Have you considered getting one of those motorized wheelchairs? A lot of people your age have them."

"Ha, ha," he said sarcastically, dropping his bag in the corner. She made a joke about his age once in the middle of a mission and he'd laughed, so now the jokes were nonstop. He didn't mind, though he wondered how differently their friendship would've progressed if he hadn't laughed at that first joke. He brushed that possibly lonely thought away by asking, "How'd the job go?"

She shrugged loosely and took a long pull from her water bottle. "Standard extraction," she said after she swallowed. "Not much room for failure."

Knowing Natasha, it had probably been far more life-threatening than she let on. He let it go, anyway. If she'd been in serious danger, he hoped she would tell him. They weren't very close—not like she was with Barton—but he thought they were getting there.

"No shield," she ordered, capping her bottle and tossing it onto a pile of folded towels.

"No weapons," he added. Adding that caveat meant that he then had to wait for her while she stripped her body of every knife she'd hidden on it. He didn't know how she hid eight knives in a tank top and work-out pants, but then he didn't know a lot about Natasha.

When all her knives were in a pile at her feet, she smirked and asked, "You ready to go or do you need a little more time? I've only been waiting half an hour for you to show up."

He scoffed and got into position. "I'm hearing a lot of talk and seeing no action."

She laughed and they began.

They both hold back when they spar. Steve because he didn't want to hurt Natasha; Natasha because she didn't want to kill Steve. And Steve had no doubt that in a weaponless, no-holds-barred fight, Natasha would kill him. Armed with his shield, he knew it was a different story.

"Keep telling yourself that," she said when he voiced that thought. Then she threw him onto his back again with little more than a grunt.

_She just got back from a mission_, he thought, groaning as he got to his feet. _Shouldn't she be exhausted?_

When they go another round, he was quicker. A few jabs, some feints, and she was down—his forearm pinning her to the mat. She was as stoic as ever.

"I'm just tired," she said so seriously that it took Steve a second to realize that she was joking.

"Keep telling yourself that," he quipped back as he helped her to her feet. She smirked. They attack again.

* * *

Neither Steve nor Natasha had it in them to spar for more than an hour that day. Nat waited for Steve just outside the room as he gathered his things and neatly packed them into his duffel.

_You can take the man out of the army, but you can't take the army out of the man_, Nat had said the first time she came to his apartment and seen the Spartan furnishings and neatly folded blankets on his bed. Nat herselfwasn't so messy, but he'd seen her locker in the gym and found that it was in a perpetual state of organized chaos.

When he joined Nat, her eyes were fixed on an agent running on one of the many treadmills. Nat was not the only one watching, though. A quick scan around the room at the other agents surprised Steve. Nearly every one of them was scowling at her, some covertly, others overtly. He even saw one agent roll her eyes, much to her companions' amusement.

The only thing that Steve noticed about the running woman was her hair—long, pulled back into a ponytail; the top half dark, the bottom a bright blue that hurt his eyes even halfway across the gym. Otherwise, she was wholly unremarkable. He didn't know why she was attracting so much attention.

He tapped Nat's shoulder. "You ready?"

She narrowed her eyes and nodded. But when they walked past the blue-haired agent, Nat paused and leaned against the treadmill.

"You're doing a great job," she encouraged softly.

The agent was so startled—whether by the praise or the source or at the sudden appearance of someone at her elbow, Steve didn't know—that she tripped, catching herself just in time to avoid flying off the belt.

"Agent Romanoff!" she squeaked, pushing her thick-framed glasses up her nose nervously. "Oh, thanks."

"I can kick a few asses, if you'd like," Nat offered. Then she turned and glared at the agent on the next treadmill over, the one openly gawking at the two of them. He immediately turned his face at the blank wall in front of him, eyes wide in fear.

The blue-haired agent laughed. "Aw, that's so sweet," she gushed through heavy pants, her cheeks turning even redder. The offer was anything but sweet, but Steve was so bewildered that he couldn't even say anything. "But I wouldn't be doing this if I couldn't handle a few stares."

What 'this' is, Steve didn't know. But Natasha seemed to understand, smiling once more at the agent before gesturing to Steve to follow her out of the gym.

When they entered the atrium, he asked, "What was that about?"

She punched the 'up' arrow on the elevator. As they waited for the doors to open, she explained, "A lot of the scientists are too scared to use the gym because the field agents intimidate them into staying out. It's some stupid S.H.I.E.L.D. thing."

Steve frowned. "You're S.H.I.E.L.D., too."

She shook her head. "Not like them. It's a rivalry that starts at the academy. Scientists think they're smarter than field agents and field agents think the scientists are undisciplined and everyone thinks they're better than the analysts. I never went to the academy; I was brought in later."

She was the infamous assassin for the Russians before Hawkeye brought her in, Steve recalled her saying. The rivalry between divisions was probably quite foreign to her. Steve remembered the rivalry between the branches of military, however, so he found it less strange. Disappointing, yes—he'd hoped that society had advanced beyond petty rivalries— but normal.

"So you were encouraging her. That's…nice of you." And totally out-of-character, as far as Steve was concerned.

She smiled like she knew what he was thinking. "I'm a nice girl."

"Um, okay." She punched his arm lightly, giving him a mock-glare. He held his hands up. "Sorry. I emphatically agree."

The elevator doors opened. She stepped in, stopping him from following her in. "Hey!" he exclaimed. His hand shot out to stop the doors from closing in his face.

She smiled softly at his disgruntled expression. "Go do something fun, Steve. You've been working too hard."

"You're one to talk," he retorted. "When'd you get back, three hours ago?"

"Four," she corrected him without a hint of sheepishness. "But I didn't just take back-to-back-to-back assignments." Unfortunately, that was true. In an effort to spend as little time alone in his apartment in its depressingly unfurnished state, he'd taken three assignments in a row, spanning a month's time and taking him to five countries on three continents. He'd gotten back a week earlier, but he was already antsy for another job. When he was silent, she quirked her eyebrow in amusement. "Yeah. You need to depressurize."

He ran his hand through his sweaty hair and sighed. "Fine," he agreed, removing his hand from the door. Natasha radiated smugness. She clearly enjoyed every victory she won.

He was determined to have the final word. Just as the doors closed, he quickly added, "But so do you." He saw her smile widen just before it snapped shut.

_Now what? _he thought as he stood there staring dumbly at the elevator. The only plans he'd made that day were with Nat. He'd been counting on meeting with Fury to fill up another week, until Nat ordered him to have fun without her. He knew what she had in mind; something "fun" meant going on a date or hanging out with friends.

_I need friends first,_ he thought sullenly. He wished things were different. He wished he had it in him to make friends, but the part of him that was afraid of the brave new world couldn't stop missing Bucky and Howard and Peggy long enough to do that.

He shifted his duffel bag strap on his shoulder and trudged out of the Triskelion, predicting yet another night alone in his bare apartment.

* * *

Dr. Mallory Cohen could take a lot of examination. She didn't like it, but she'd gotten used to it over the years. Being a mutant numbs you to scrutiny.

Of course, no one in S.H.I.E.L.D. knew she was a mutant. In the eight years she'd been working for S.H.I.E.L.D, she'd never revealed her mutation to her superiors. Being a scientist had made her nervous to let her curious coworkers know that she was a genetic anomaly.

Thankfully, her mutation didn't express itself through her skin or her eyes or her hair—which was blue only because she dyed it. Others weren't nearly so lucky. She knew this; she'd been able to lead a relatively normal life up to this point because she didn't look at all like what people imagine when they think of mutants.

No, the current scrutiny wasn't from being a mutant. The scrutiny was because she was in the wrong place.

She almost laughed at how timid the agents were. They all scoffed and rolled their eyes, but not one of them came up to her and told her to leave. Especially not after Agent Romanoff gave her her blessing to be there.

"You're doing a great job," she'd said with a beautiful smile. Mal took a mental picture of that smile and stowed it away to pull out on a bad day.

Unfortunately, Mal had to be a total dork in front of the Black Widow because she was apparently incapable of staying cool. She stuttered and blushed and almost flew off the treadmill in shock. And, to her unending credit, Agent Romanoff pretended not to see it.

"Agent Romanoff!" she'd said—in a cool, punk-rock way, she tried to convince herself later—before thanking her graciously.

"I can kick a few asses, if you'd like," she'd offered, shooting deadly glares at the agents ogling nearby.

As a pacifist, Mal was horrified. As a bisexual woman who'd idolized Black Widow the moment she'd first learned of her existence, however, she was _very_ aroused. She'd giggled—again, in a cool, punk-rock way that definitely made Agent Romanoff admire her—and said, "Aw, that's so sweet! But I wouldn't be doing this if I couldn't handle a few stares."

Agent Romanoff had raised a carefully plucked eyebrow and shrugged (Mal later convinced herself that Agent Romanoff was impressed with her blasé attitude and was now resolving to learn her name and phone number). With one final smile that left Mal swooning and nearly flying off the treadmill again, she gestured to the man beside her. In her star-struck awe, Mal had failed to notice Steve Rogers—Captain _freaking_ America—waiting patiently for them to finish their conversation.

After they left, Mal was so jittery that she forgot that she was a mutant scientist in a gym full of field agents and turned the speed up to the highest setting. She ran until her muscles were properly tired, exhausted before they could knit back together again, a difficult feat for someone with an accelerated healing factor.

Fifteen minutes later, she stopped off at her office to drop off her sports-bag and pick up her tablet. Then she headed for the laboratory down the hall, humming a jingle under her breath.

"The prodigal daughter returns," Colton said when she floated into the lab. And despite her utter contentment, she rolled her eyes.

"Am I still a member of the tribe?" she asked sarcastically.

He pretended to consider it. "You'll have to submit another application. Processing takes six to eight weeks."

"I don't have time for that!" she exclaimed. "You know what, how about I just fire you instead?"

"…Welcome back, boss."

She nodded smugly as he stuck his tongue out at her. Dr. Colton Ford is her assistant on Project Salamander. And while they'd become good friends since he'd been assigned to her in June, interns are laughably replaceable. She knew one engineer two floors down who had a new assistant every week. She wasn't sure where the old ones went, but no one ever saw them again. Colton had often expressed his belief that they were shot and killed and that the cadavers at the SciTech Academy are actually former students who didn't last as interns.

Colton, the sick bastard, asked, "How was your slog through sweaty, macho hell?"

She sighed exasperatedly. "I don't know what you're imagining, Colt. It's not _Fight Club_ down there. It's really nice. There's a juice bar."

He shook his head. "I don't care if the swimming pool is filled with chocolate; I'm never setting foot in that place."

"That's surprising, considering your diet is mainly Olympic-sized chocolate swimming pools."

"Hey, I had an apple this morning!" When she looked at him blankly, he amended, "I had fruit. Okay, it was Fruit by the Foot."

Another intern, Dr. Ashley Reardon, piped up sullenly, "It's unfair. You can eat a family-sized bag of Doritos and still be a stick, but if I eat one spoonful of ice cream, I gain five pounds."

Mal sent her a sympathetic smile and reassured her, "Take comfort in the fact that Colt's a deeply unhappy person." To prove her point, he jauntily saluted them with his slide and put his face to the microscope's eyepiece, grinning maniacally all the while. The women shared annoyed looks.

"Ash, I'd really like a work-out buddy, if you ever want to join me," Mal offered. "Blood circulation is good for brain activity, too. If you're ever stuck on something, an hour of jogging can really do wonders."

She winced and rubbed the back of her neck. "It's okay. I, erm, don't want to use the gym here. The agents are scary enough when you're not working out right next to them."

Ashley wasn't what Mal would call fat, but she was clearly not in the kind of shape any of the field agents were in. And as the sweetest person Mal knows, it killed Mal to know that she was tremendously self-conscious. She'd often expressed her desire to start working out, but she was so busy with work that getting a gym membership would only be a waste of money. And of course, no scientist wanted to use the in-house gym on the bottom floor of the Triskelion because of the stupid rivalry between divisions.

Mal pounded her fist on the table, startling Colton away from his microscope for a second. "Damn those sexy bastards. We can't keep letting these field agents ruin our lives! Scientists!" she said loudly to the five other scientists in the lab. She stood up, raising a fist to the ceiling. "I urge you to stand up for your rights! I don't want to be your leader, but leadership has been thrust upon upon me! Together, we can get our post-summer bodies back into pre-summer shape! Who's with me?"

No one stopped their work. After working with her for three months, they're all used to her bi-weekly stub-speeches. And because they're all interns, none of them were willing to tell her to sit down.

None except for Dr. Jennifer Esposito. "Mal, sit down," she barked, aggressively signing a tablet one of her interns shakily handed to her. "People are trying to work."

Dr. Esposito was the only other scientist in their lab that headed her own project. She never liked Mal, not from the moment Mal got reassigned from San Francisco to the lab table across from her, and especially not when she got her project approved before Esposito got hers. Mal found her intimidating as all hell.

"Fine, but I'm not letting this go," she said, hoisting herself up onto the table beside Colton.

"Get off the table, Cohen."

"No." She got off the table. "We're not technically banned from the gym, you know. It's just a stupid fake rule."

Esposito glowered at her over her microscope. "Don't you have work to do?"

"I said I wasn't letting this go."

She rolled her eyes. Mal took this as enough invitation to continue, "No one said anything to me the whole time I was there, Ash. 'Cause they knew they didn't have a leg to stand on."

Ashley nodded and smiled weakly, still not convinced.

"And," she added giddily, "Agent Roma-freakin'-noff told me I was doing a great job, so yeah. Best day ever? I think so! Gimme some fin, Ford." Ever faithful, Colton slapped her hand when she held it up for a high-five.

Without moving her eye from her microscope, Esposito drawled sarcastically, "Wow, Agent Romanoff said that? You two should get married!"

She sighed dramatically. "Yeah, if only she wasn't straight, out of my league, and dating Barton," she replied. Esposito rolled her eyes.

Ever sweet, Ashley steered them back on course with soft words. "I appreciate it, Mal, but I'm just not ready," she said quietly, glancing down at her hands.

Mal sighed, trying to hide her disappointment. It would've been nice to have someone to work out with, especially considering that it was the only personal time she allotted to herself. "Alright. But you let me know as soon as you are, okay?" Ashley gave her a weak smile and turned her attention back to her tablet.

It was then, as she glanced around her laboratory filled with people she barely knew, that Mal suddenly missed being in San Francisco, where she had good friends and her family didn't feel so far away. Even surrounded by people, she felt lonelier than she'd ever felt in her life.

She prodded Colton's shoulder, doing her best to hide the desperation in her voice when she asked, "Hey, you wanna hang out tonight?"

He winced and leaned back to look at her. "Oo, can't. Got a hot date with Marlene. Our third date, actually. You know what that means."

"Yeah."

"Likely to end—"

"Don't finish that."

"In sex times," he finished.

"Yuck," she replied with a grimace.

To his credit, he seemed sad about refusing her offer. "I'm free tomorrow," he suggested instead.

She waved him off. "It's fine. I'm working tomorrow night, anyway. The results from the GWAS should be coming in tomorrow." She shrugged. "Maybe another time."

He sighed, running a hand through his sandy blond hair in exasperation. "You work too hard."

Esposito made an annoyed sound at that. "Not hard enough," she snapped. "If you're just gonna keep talking, do it outside."

Mal blinked dumbly and shook her head. "Right, actually, I'm gonna work from my office for the rest of the day," she announced to the tabletop. "Colt, get the sequence from LR-C 18 to me before you leave."

"You got it, boss." She caught his worried look just before she left the lab.

Even three months after getting her own office, it was almost bare. It was not for a lack of photos, though. She had one of her parents in front of their house in Hawaii, and another of her best friends from the SciTech academy, but no others. The ones from her days at Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters were carefully catalogued in photo albums in her apartment, behind two locked doors. She wasn't taking any chances when it came to her mutation.

She slumped into her chair and opened her laptop. She smiled faintly at the unread message from _Jemma Simmons _and clicked on it. It had to be decrypted before she could access it. Before the girls got reassigned in June, they'd agreed that encrypting their messages was the safest way to stay up to date with one another. S.H.I.E.L.D. is, after all, an intelligence agency and it would be naïve of them to think that their messages weren't being monitored.

It only took a few minutes for her decryption program to open the email. Inside, there were a dozen photos—Jemma and Leo making funny faces at the camera in front of an Incan ruin; Jemma and Leo wearing safety glasses making funny faces in their cramped laboratory; Jemma and unfamiliar girl grinning together on a couch. The attached message was lengthy, but Mal immediately began reading. She missed her old coworkers and she'd been eager to hear from them since they officially started in the field.

_Hey, Mal! _

_It's been a crazy couple of weeks, but I've finally gotten enough time to send you a message. Obviously, I can't get into the details (damn these security levels!) but we're all fine—that is, Fitz and I, as well as our new colleagues. The girl in the photos is Skye; she's a brilliant hacker and quite nice as well. You two would get along, I think. Hopefully, we'll touch down in D.C. one of these days so we can have a hen night, like the good old days. Maybe with fewer scientific samples, though. _

_We're slowly adjusting to being out in the field. There's a lot more running around than we researchers are used to, but I think it's quite exciting! Already, we've been to Peru, Malta, and we've just touched down in Stockholm. I doubt we'll be here long though, which is a shame; we were looking forward to visiting the Vasa Museum. It has some really cool shipwrecks. I would've gotten pictures. Oh, well. We'll just have to go together someday!_

_It's been so much fun, though I do wish you were here. You and your bloody research, needing all of your fancy equipment and your lab rats. I'm joking (kind of). Actually, Fitz and I have done some of our best work on the Bus. We came up with a non-lethal firearm that can incapacitate an enemy without any long-lasting effects. Which reminds me: we need a better name than a "Night-Night Gun," which is what Fitz has taken to calling it. Unfortunately, it's really caught on with the agents here, so you have to come up with something less stupid. Don't tell Fitz I said it was stupid. _

The message went on for several more pages, which had always been Jemma's way. She wasn't one to do something half-way. It took her at least half an hour to get to the bottom of the email, which ended with:

_I've got to go now; we're taking off. Fitz says hello, as usual. And Skye's been reading over my shoulder; she says hello as well. We miss you terribly! Write back soon!_

_Love, Jemma_

_P.S. Don't work too hard. Get out and do something fun!_

She rested her face in her hand. Fitz had always been content with puttering around a lab, but from the moment they met, she knew Jemma would never be satisfied with that life. She had an adventurous spirit, just as Mal did. If she wasn't so intent on her project, she would've requested a transfer to the field with them.

She snorted at Jemma's hopeful post-script. _Fun_, she thought, gazing at her old friends' smiling faces. _No one wants to have fun anymore, Jem._

And instead of going home like she'd planned, she stayed at work until early into the morning, until the lights went out and she was the only one there.

* * *

**Okay, for those of you who might have read my _Walking Dead_ story, I would like to assure you that I have not forgotten it. But I have sort of hit a block on that one. I promise I'll complete it, but it is hard to get inspiration during a hiatus. Also, a million different Marvel movies just came out/will soon be coming out (_Guardians of the Galaxy_, anyone?!) so I've been cranking out the superhero stuff.**

**Obviously, _The Walking Dead _is an intrinsically darker franchise than MCU stuff, so t****his will be a very different story from _Fire and Ice. _It is simultaneously a lot of fun and a hell of a challenge. For those who've read _FaI_, you know that Anna is an angsty, introverted punk-ass. I've got a huge soft spot for angsty, introverted punk-asses, but I wanted to try my hand at writing someone entirely different, someone extroverted and kind. Unfortunately, nice characters do tend to attract more criticism because they can seem a little too perfect (e.g. Steve Rogers gets a lot of shit for being a relatively uncomplicated hero, Sansa Stark from _A Song of Ice and Fire_ because she's not a sword-fighting sassmaster like her sister, etc.) Of course, I'm not nearly as good a writer as GRRM or any number of the MCU writers/Marvel writers, so I ask that you give me a lot of feedback on Mallory so that I can try to write her as realistically as possible (for a mutant scientist working for a fictional intelligence organization, anyway). **

**Secondly, this is a bit of a crossover story between _Captain America: The Winter Soldier, The Avengers, _the _X-Men _franchise, and _Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D._ Most accurately, it should be in the _Captain America_ section because Cap is the main canon character and because the beginning takes place from October to _CA:TWS_. After that, there will be more appearances from the X-Men and the Avengers, but the focus will still be on characters from _TWS_. **

**Lastly, I'll probably change genres later on as more characters join the cast. At the moment, this is about two lonely people who become friends that are occasionally attracted to one another. **

**Urgh, this is really long, sorry. I understand if you don't want to review/fav/follow after all of that nonsense. I'd appreciate it, though. I also try to reply to every review I can, so if you have any questions, comments, concerns, let me know and I'll get back to you ASAP!**


	2. Chapter 2

**Disclaimer: I don't own Marvel.**

* * *

**Chapter 2**

_The Triskelion, Washington D.C._

_October 17th, 2013_

Without an assignment or friends outside of S.H.I.E.L.D., Steve found himself haunting the gym in the Triskelion every day of the week. A few times, he'd called Natasha to work out together and got her voicemail every time. He started to worry after the third time it happened, only to immediately receive a text from her that simply said, _Barton in town. See you next week_.

Barton was rarely in D.C., so Steve couldn't begrudge Nat for wanting to spend time with the other half of Strike Team Delta. Even if he found Hawkeye slightly unnerving, which definitely _wasn't_ because the first time he'd encountered him was when Loki had his clutches on his subconscious. Steve could see past that. He just found Hawkeye's stare a little too intense; especially when all they were doing was inspecting the ice cream labels at Baskin Robin's.

Natasha thought his consternation was hilarious and made no attempt to bridge the weird, one-sided gap between the two men. Steve wasn't sure if he appreciated or resented her lack of effort.

And because Fury was out of town altogether—taking care of a "situation" in Buenos Aires, according to his unflappable secretary—Steve had nothing to do except work out.

But on Sunday, the gym was crawling with curious field agents. He spent the first half hour of his workout taking "selfies" with overly enthused agents before he finally retreated to a private room.

Steve never thought of himself as a celebrity. A few agents asked him for combat tips, which he gladly dispensed. He was a soldier, after all. Some asked about his day, which was nice; for a moment, he felt like a regular guy. But receiving adulation? That was for Tony Stark.

When he poked his head in on Thursday afternoon, he breathed a sigh of relief to find only a few agents milling about. That was the pattern, though. Weekends were mobbed by agents fresh from their week-long assignments and weekdays were quiet.

Maybe that was why she was here today; fewer people to gawk at her as she lifted weights. The scientist that Natasha had given kind words of encouragement was there again. It was the first time he'd seen her since then. Each day after the first one, he looked around for her blue hair, to see if Natasha's words had been enough to bring her back. He'd been disappointed every day that he didn't find her and hoped that no one had bullied her away from the gym. Steve did _not_ like bullies.

But he should've known better than to think it'd take a couple of giggles at her expense to scare her off. From what few words she exchanged with Nat, Steve knew the kid had a decent amount of pluck about her—certainly enough to ward off snide comments.

She was on the bench press today—alone, he noted with a grimace. That was dangerous even for him. He waited for her to rack the bar before he spoke up, "You shouldn't lift without a spotter."

She sat up and glanced over her shoulder at him. Her eyes were golden brown, rimmed with smooth eyeliner. "I have a few more sets, if you're offering," she replied slyly, punctuating her remark with a toothy smile.

He tried and failed to hide his smile. She had moxie, alright. He shrugged. "Sure."

Before she could lie back down, he stuck his hand out to her. He wasn't completely without manners. "Steve Rogers, by the way."

Their handshake was very awkward because of the way he'd offered his hand, but she took in stride, laughing when he blushed. "Mallory Cohen. Everyone calls me Mal, though." She shrugged and lifted the bar off the rack. "I guess they're in a hurry."

He rushed to stand over her, in case she was more tired than she looked, but she didn't seem to need his help. "Everyone's in a hurry these days," he said absently, his hand hovering over the bar.

She furrowed her brow, her tongue poking between her teeth. "Does that bother you?" she asked in between breaths.

He shrugged. "Society's moved forward, I guess," he replied. "It's not good or bad; it's just different."

She racked the bar again and, without sitting up, she stared at him curiously. "That's…very mature of you."

"Well, I am 95 years old," he said without thinking. Usually, when Steve made offhand jokes about his time as a 'Capsicle', people froze up, unsure of whether to laugh or give him a sympathetic look. Both were understandable reactions to an uncomfortable topic, he thought, so he'd been trying to keep them to a minimum around people who weren't Natasha.

And despite not being Natasha, she snorted loudly; so loudly that she startled a passing field agent into reaching for his belt. Steve held up a hand to let him know there was no danger, but Mal never noticed. "Sorry, that was gross."

"It's fine. That was in poor taste, anyway."

She shook her head. "No, it wasn't," she assured him and lifted the bar again. "It's good that you have a sense of humor about it."

"Not much else I can have but a sense of humor," he replied. It's what Bucky would have wanted for him; what Peggy would still want for him. It was what Natasha gently encouraged in him every moment they spent together. People always praised his character, but he knew he was only as strong as the people he loved.

"That's a good way of thinking of it," she said, racking the bar and sitting up. He stepped away, ready to leave her to her own devices. But she stood and nodded at the bench press. "I can spot you, if you'd like."

She was about the same dimensions as Natasha—compact and powerful, though she hadn't lifted more than eighty pounds—so he nodded. She watched with narrowed eyes as he sheepishly took her weights off of the bar and added two hundred pounds on either side.

"Oh, you're cool," she sneered jokingly when he added another fifty pounds to the bar.

"That's my job, ma'am," he replied cheekily, saluting her and laying himself beneath the bar. It was barely enough weight to make him sweat.

She twisted her lips. "Your job is to be cool at the gym?"

"Mainly, yes."

She winced and clutched her heart. "You're crushing my image of you, Captain."

"That's the other part of my job. Crushing preconceived notions."

She laughed. It was a big, belly laugh; the type he hadn't heard in a long time. Probably not since he was fighting alongside Bucky in the war. He savored every second of it.

When she finished, he asked, "So, what do you do?"

"Besides embarrass myself at the gym?" He smiled when she did. "I'm a scientist in the Biochem department. I got transferred here three months ago."

"So did I!" he said; way too excitedly, in his opinion. He really liked having things in common with people nowadays. "Where'd you get transferred from?"

She gestured vaguely behind her. For a moment, he stupidly assumed she meant from the juice bar. "San Francisco. You…started three months ago?" she asked incredulously.

He furrowed his brow. "Sort of. I was on retainer in New York for about a year after I woke up." That had been the longest year of his life. "Fury asked me to come on full-time, but I had to move here."

"'Had to'?" she asked jokingly. "You don't like D.C.?"

Steve chuckled. "I like it well enough, but New York's my hometown. It was hard to leave." It'd been hard to leave back in 1942 as well, even though he felt like he was doing the right thing. He sat up, resting his elbows on his knees, and waved a hand at her. "You know what it's like."

She sat beside him, her legs tucked under her body on the bench. "San Fran's not my hometown, but yeah. I understand." She tapped her fingernails against her leg and added softly, "I really didn't want to leave my friends, though. That was my big thing. I've moved around so often that places never really held much meaning, but I never want to leave the people I love."

He looked at her. She wasn't a remarkable beauty, not like Natasha or Peggy, but the more he spoke to her, the more he found it difficult to draw his eyes away. Her natural hair was dark, almost black, and thick. Her eyelashes were long; her face was rounded with a soft nose and a wide, full mouth. His fingers itched for a pencil and paper.

"That's hard," he quietly agreed.

She winced. "And you're the last person I should be complaining to."

"It's alright," he assured her, because it was. "I understand more than most what it's like to miss the people you love."

"Still…" She trailed off when he gave her a look. "Okay. Stop looking at me like that." He continued to look at her. She huffed, "If you're going for 'disappointed father', you have it down."

Steve laughed, nudging her off the bench with his shoulder so he could lie down again. "Where're you from?" he asked, trying to change the subject before they fell into an uncomfortable silence.

"Originally?" He could only grimace in response; the weight was beginning to press down on him in earnest after ten reps. She kept her hand over the bar nervously and answered, "Honolulu."

"Hawaii?"

"Yes. There are so many Honolulu's in this country; it's a good thing you clarified," she said. He smiled sheepishly. "Yup, Hawaiian, born and bred." She lifted her hand just long enough to hold out her pinky and thumb. "Howzit!"

"Uh…"

She waved off his confusion. "Don't worry about it. But I started boarding school in New York when I was ten, and I've been stateside ever since."

"Wow. Ten years old?"

She nodded. "Yeah, I was pretty young. It was hard to leave home, but it was for a prestigious institute. And I already knew I wanted to be a scientist, so…" she trailed off with a shrug. "It was a no-brainer."

He racked the bar and sat up again. "You knew that you wanted to be a biochem scientist when you were ten years old?" He was twenty-nine and he didn't even know what biochem was.

"Just the science part. I figured out the biochem later. Actually, my father's a marine biology professor at UH—University of Hawaii at Manoa," she clarified when his frown deepened in confusion, "and my mother is a high school chemistry teacher, so, you know…" she shrugged and clasped her hands together. "Biochemistry." She scratched the back of her head and amended, "Actually, that's not true. I took an interest while I was at boarding school. One of my old professors is at the top of his field in genetics."

He had to stop her before she got much further and left him in the verbal dust. "What…exactly do you do as a biochemist?" he asked sheepishly.

"Oh, I'm so sorry!" She smacked her forehead. "No, don't be embarrassed for asking. A lot of the most significant advancements in the biochemical field happened after World War II." She began counting off on her fingers. "Photo 51, Watson and Crick, the Human Genome Project—obviously, I have more of an emphasis on the genetic side of Biochemistry; I have a colleague who is more interested in biochemical munitions, but that's beside the point."

Steve got about half of what she was saying. "Uh…"

But she was on a roll. "I have to just to get this out of the way: Project Rebirth was a biological marvel. Dr. Erskine's work was, frankly, unbelievable, especially when you take into consideration how little we actually knew about genetics back then."

He recognized the name, of course, and started at it. "You're familiar with Dr. Erskine?"

She chuckled, nudging her glasses back up her nose. They'd slipped down as she'd grown more and more animated. "Every biochemist in S.H.I.E.L.D. is familiar with Dr. Erskine. Your case study is introductory reading for Biochem majors at the academy—hell, the whole Biochem department exists to facilitate the recreation of the super soldier serum; every other project is auxiliary as far as our superiors are concerned."

His eyebrows shot up. "You're working on the serum?"

She immediately screwed up her face, waving her hands in front of her. "Oh, no, no. I'm head of an auxiliary project." Then she scratched the back of her head and quietly admitted, "To be honest, I don't have too much interest in human enhancements— beyond an academic interest, I mean." She winced as though she'd personally offended him for not taking an interest in his procedure. "Sorry."

Suddenly, he didn't feel completely lost in the onslaught of scientific jargon. He scoffed, "Wow. And we were having such a nice conversation."

Mal snorted and he couldn't keep the mock-indignation on his face for long. Through giggles, she pointed to the bar and asked, "One more set?"

"Sure." When she checked her phone, though, he realized that he was probably keeping her from her work. "But if you need to leave now, I understand…" he trailed off reluctantly. Despite the vernacular gap between them, Mal was surprisingly easy to talk to. He was actually enjoying himself; he wasn't eager to see her go.

"Oh, no," she exclaimed, shaking her head. "I like talking to you. And I don't exactly have a wealth of friends here, being the new kid."

He nodded. "Yeah, I know what that's like."

"Making friends is hard. And especially when you're busy _all the time_, you know?"

"I know!" Again, he felt he went overboard with the excitement in his tone. "That's what I keep telling Nat—Agent Romanoff," he clarified.

Mal choked on her breath, turning red as she coughed. He finished his set and sat up, worry on his face. "You alright?" he asked slowly when her coughs subsided.

"I'm good." She coughed one more time. "Okay, now I'm better." She pointed at her throat embarrassedly. "Choked on my saliva."

"Ah."

Still red, Mal bent down to grab her hot pink duffel bag, slinging the strap over her shoulder. Automatically, Steve stood and she had to arch her neck to smile up at him. "Thanks for spotting me," she said. "I probably would've crushed myself under the bar if you didn't show up."

"You would've been fine," he said.

She beamed, her turquoise fingernails scratching at the pink strap over her shoulder. "Maybe we'll see each other around," she suggested.

"Yeah…" he agreed slowly, raising his hand when she waved and started to walk away.

If Natasha was here, she'd be stomping on his foot for letting her get away. _Ask her out!_ Her voice screamed in his head, even though the real Natasha never raised her voice above a barked command to their subordinates.

"Dr. Cohen!" he called and, before he could chicken out, he caught up with her. She turned and rolled her eyes, an indulgent smile on her face.

"Please, call me Mal; Dr. Cohen is my father. And my mother…" she added as an afterthought.

"Sorry—Mal. Would you—I mean, I was wondering…do you want to get coffee? W-with me, I mean?" he stuttered, blushing. He really didn't mean to make it sound like a date, because it wasn't.

"Right now?"

He nodded. "Sure. Or whenever." There was an in-house café a few floors up that overlooked the Potomac. He'd never actually stuck around long enough to enjoy the view, but Nat told him that it was quite picturesque.

She grimaced, fishing a watch out of one of her bag's pockets. "It'll have to be whenever, I'm afraid." When she read the time, she squeaked. "Oh god, I gave myself an hour and it's been an hour and a half! I'm so sorry, I've really gotta go!"

He ducked his head. "I won't keep you."

She danced in place, biting her tongue as her eyebrows met at the center of her forehead. She looked like she was debating something in her head. "I can get coffee next Monday, if you're free then?" she offered at last.

As far as he knew, he didn't have anything. He smiled and nodded in agreement. "Yeah, that sounds good."

"Great!" she exclaimed and started walking backwards out of the gym. "I'll text you the time I'm available, is that cool?"

Steve shook his head and followed. "You, uh, you don't have my number," he pointed out quietly.

She smacked her forehead. "Right. Get it together, Cohen," she muttered to herself as she entered the string of numbers he rattled off onto her S.H.I.E.L.D. issued phone with lightning speed. "I'll text you so you can add my number on your phone," she added as she rushed out. "Later!"

"Bye," he called back, but she was already gone, her blue hair the last thing he saw before she disappeared.

He rubbed his neck and went back to the bench press, a silly grin making a home on his face. Mal Cohen was just the sort of person he could see becoming good friends with. She had a quick wit and an easy smile. Frankly, he found it almost unbelievable that she hadn't already befriended the entire building in the three months she'd been here.

His pocket beeped at him. It took him a moment to pluck his phone out of it. When he did, his grin became a chuckle.

_This is Mal Cohen, your talkative spotter. :) See you Monday!_

Steve couldn't wait.

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**Thanks for reading! The first part of this story (the part that takes place before CA:TWS) is going to be a lot of Steve/Mal friendship stuff, btw. The stuff I have planned for TWS portion of this story is less dorky conversations at the gym, more drama. **

**And I don't want to spoil it but I also don't want to give anyone the wrong impression-Mal and Steve will most likely _not_ end up together. Like, I'm 95% sure it's not going to happen. Most likely, this is going to be a Mal/Bucky story, but I haven't changed the characters/genre because Bucky's not going to be in the story for a while and the romance won't start for an even longer amount of time.**

**Please let me know what you think! Tell me if you think Steve's in character because he's surprisingly difficult to keep in character. **


	3. Chapter 3

**Disclaimer: don't own anyone/thing you recognize.**

**also, some cursing. I'm trying to keep it to a minimum 'cause this is rated 'T', but sometimes it slips in there.**

* * *

**Chapter 3**

* * *

_The Triskelion, Washington D.C._

_October 21st, 2013_

Mal was not a punctual person. She was consistently late to meetings with her teachers, doctor's appointments, dates. When she got transferred back in June, she completely missed her flight out of SFO, had to reschedule it, and then managed to miss the rescheduled flight. When she recounted the story to Jemma later, her friend laughed for five minutes straight and had to hang up to regain control of herself.

So it wasn't surprising to Mal when she checked her watch absently and found that she was ten minutes late to her coffee date with Steve Rogers.

She shot up out of her desk chair. "Crap in a box." She was in her office, a few floors above the café. If she ran and the elevators were on her side, she could get down there in three minutes.

Mal burst out of her office, hobbling as she removed her heels for faster movement. Her pencil skirt wasn't conducive to running, but she attempted it anyway.

But when she rounded a corner, she almost collided with Colton. "Oh, I'm so sorry!" she exclaimed when he dropped his tablet in surprise.

"Jesus Christ Superstar," he grumbled, bending down to pick it up. He eyed at her bare feet and sighed. "Mal, this isn't the pool, even if we operate by pool rules." She cocked her head in confusion. He explained, "No running and no shitting in the water."

"Ugh."

He checked the time on his watch, asking, "Where are you going? You have a meeting at noon with Dr. Krantz."

The meeting was the reason for her heels and pencil skirt. Usually, her attire was much more casual—tights under short skirts, patterned dresses, and of course the occasionally acceptable sweatpants – t-shirt combo. She checked her watch again. "That's in two hours."

He smiled tightly. "And yet I get the feeling you're still going to be late."

"I'll be on time," she assured him, crossing her heart as she passed. She walked off before thinking better of it, turning around, and promising, "If I'm late again, I'll buy you lunch for the next week."

"Two weeks," was his counteroffer. She raised an eyebrow. He immediately backed down. "Fine, a week." He jabbed his index finger at her, staring her down just before she stepped into the elevator. "I'll still be pissed if you're late, though. Noon."

She saluted him with a high heel.

The Triskelion's in-house café was a million contradictions on one floor. From everything she'd heard, back before there was a café, there'd been a lot of complaints that the coffee in Triskelion break rooms was total crap. So, Director Fury—who'd apparently been the most vocal about the quality of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s java—opened a coffee shop on the floor with the best view of D.C. in the building, thus killing two birds with one stone (at the time, there'd also been a turf war over the fifteenth floor amongst different divisions, all of whom wanted the view for themselves).

Initially, people weren't happy that the café wasn't Starbucks or some other chain. But it made sense: S.H.I.E.L.D. couldn't have employees from a different organization under their roof, even if they were just baristas. So the employees were S.H.I.E.L.D. employees, all carefully vetted through a long, secretive process. They weren't agents, mainly because most of the agents were overqualified to serve coffee and pastries. But they'd all be sworn to secrecy. She knew for a fact that at least one of the baristas had a higher clearance level than she did.

Of course, because S.H.I.E.L.D. was surprisingly full of whiners, there were some that were unhappy with that fact. Others were still pissed that the coffee wasn't from Starbucks. So Director Fury sent out the infamous "coffee memo." Both Colton and Ashley had been working at the Triskelion at the time, which was how Mal heard about it. Though when asked about it, Colton dissolved into uncontrollable laughter and was basically useless for twenty minutes, so Ashley mostly relayed the story.

Colton later showed her the transcript of the memo as he wiped tears from his eyes. It was in a frame that he kept on his desk.

"I heard that this was the heavily edited version of the memo," he'd told her. "Fury was about to send it out before Agent Hill found it and rewrote the whole thing. I would kill a man to read the original."

Even rewritten, the memo was an ode to passive-aggressive annoyance. _I would like to remind these agents that they are agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.; members of the most prestigious intelligence organization in the United States of America. Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. are not so easily bothered, especially not by the source of their _expertly_-brewed coffee. _

The "fuck all y'all" at the end of the memo was loudly implied.

Despite the controversy around the place, Mal had never actually been in the café. And now she was sprinting out of the elevator to get to it.

It was nice; very open and clean. The counters were granite, the floors dark wood, and the view was spectacular. She could easily see the Washington monument. At a small table by the window, Steve sat hunched over, his attention absorbed by something on the table in front of him.

"Oh, my god, I'm so sorry," she said without preamble when she collapsed into the seat across from Steve, unthinkingly slamming her shoes onto the table. He jumped and a pencil clattered on the floor. "I'm…" she checked her watch again. "Oh, god, fifteen minutes late. I'm s—"

He held up a hand, chuckling. "It's alright, I was just sketching." He gestured awkwardly out the window. "The view's great."

"It is." She peered at his notebook. He shyly nudged it towards her. "Wow…" she breathed, glancing out of the window. He hadn't been sketching long, she could tell—half of DC was missing in his picture—but the rest was stunning. "This is incredible."

He shrugged, the tips of his ears going red. "It's not finished and I can't get the Lincoln Memorial quite right…"

"Are you kidding?" she said incredulously, sliding it back to him. "It looks flawless. Though, in the interest of full disclosure, I should probably let you know that I know next to nothing about art."

He laughed. "But that's what's great about art; you don't need to know anything to appreciate it," he said emphatically.

She twisted her mouth and winced. "Don't you?"

"I'm an artist; I think I know what I'm talking about," he said.

"Yeah, but I'm the one who doesn't know anything about art."

"You liked my sketch," he pointed out.

"Yes, but—"

"And you admitted yourself that you don't know anything about art. You appreciate it without knowing anything about art."

She pursed her lips and raised an eyebrow. "You feel very strongly about this."

He leaned back in his chair and shrugged. "I guess I don't like when people think that art is an exclusive discipline. The point of art isn't to be pretentious; it's to make people feel something."

"That's nice." She didn't agree.

Steve tilted his head from side-to-side. "Think of it this way: half of what you told me about your job was complete gibberish to me. But if you explained it to another scientist, I'm sure they'd understand."

She held her hands up. "Woah, okay, back up." Her finger pointed at him. "Are you trying to say you think science is an exclusive discipline?"

He rested his forearms against the table, a mischievous gleam in his eye. "I guess I am."

Her mouth fell open, only half in jest. "Okay, now you're shitting where I live."

"Is that a saying now?" he asked, amused.

"I don't think it is; don't use it outside of present company." When he snorted, she flapped her hand at him. "Science is for everyone. Art is the traditionally hoity-toity discipline."

"We're gonna get into this, aren't we?"

Her arms spread out in challenge. "The gloves are coming off, man. They're coming _right_ off."

"Should we at least get coffee?"

"Probably."

They both stood up. Steve shook his head. "Hold the table, I'll order for you."

"Oh, thanks." She dug around in her blazer pocket for her wallet, handing him a crumpled five dollar bill. "Can I get a caramel latte with an extra shot of espresso?"

He nodded, but refused her money. "No, I'll pay," he insisted.

"Steve—"

"I asked you out; I'm going to pay."

At that, she bit her lip, her hands becoming a thousand times more interesting than his earnest face. "Serious question," she said to her twisting hands. Steve stopped anyway. "Is this…a date?" she asked slowly, lifting her eyes to his. He had truly beautiful eyes.

Those beautiful eyes widened. His mouth opened and closed; his hand went to scrub the back of his neck. "Honestly, I didn't mean it to be," he answered sheepishly after a moment.

She heaved a sigh of relief, her hand going to her heart. "Oh, thank _god_. Wow," she laughed, a bit maniacally if she was honest, "We're on the same page. I was _really _freaked out for a second there, but _whew!_"

He smiled tightly. "Alright."

"Too much?"

"You're verging on offensive."

She elaborated, more seriously, "I mean, you're crazy good-looking, but I'm just not looking for a relationship, you know?"

Understanding alighted on his face. "Exactly," he agreed enthusiastically. "I'm just so—"

"Busy," they said together, laughing softly at their unison.

"I really want, like, a low-maintenance friend," she continued. "Someone who won't get offended if I don't talk to them for a few weeks 'cause I'm lost in some crazy science."

"Right. And I'm gone for weeks at a time; I don't want someone worrying about me back home."

She nodded. "Relationships are hard," she sighed, crossing her arms and shrugging. "You introduce sex into anything and it's bound to get complicated."

Steve flushed brilliantly and she realized that she'd said too much. He was from the forties, for god's sake. Mal knew next to nothing about history, but she knew that it was a pretty repressed time. She winced. "Sorry." She shoved her five dollar bill into his hands, gently urging, "Go get my coffee."

He obediently did as he was told. When he came back five minutes later, two cups in hand, the red had receded to his ears. He sat down and slid the money back to her. She sighed.

"I thought we agreed this wasn't a date."

"We did. I'm paying anyway."

She narrowed her eyes at him. He crossed his arms. Finally, she said, "I'm paying next time."

"Fine."

"And after that, we go halfsies."

"Great." Both of them had their arms crossed now, glaring at each other across the table. When Steve's mouth twitched, she laughed and he relaxed.

She took a sip of her coffee. Usually, she just drank whatever Colton brought her, which was only ever black coffee with sweeteners and cream on the side, so it was nice to drink something sweeter. "So, you think science is exclusive?" she brought up again. He shrugged. "Why?"

"Most people don't know what you're talking about. It practically another language. You have to go to years and years of college to have the same vernacular and even then there's no guarantee that you'd understand."

"Okay, in that sense, you're right," she conceded. He raised his cup to her. She pointed at him. "But the ultimate goal of scientific research is to move _society_ forward. Yes, there are some scientists who do science for the thrill of un-clouding the unknown because they just don't like not knowing things. But even their discoveries end up benefiting the people. We're…" she furrowed her brow in thought. "…agents of progress for the rest of society."

He thought about that. Finally, he nodded and said, "You're right."

She straightened up in her chair. "Oh!" She grinned.

He was bemused. "What?"

She shrugged. "People don't really admit being wrong about something; I don't know if that's different now or if they were like that in your day."

"My day…" he repeated, shaking his head. "No, people have never admitting being wrong. But I _was_ wrong." She made a satisfied sound and took a victorious sip of her coffee. "And you were wrong about art."

Her smile became a scowl. "I guess."

He put his cup on the table as he started gesturing more animatedly. "I think people get the impression that art is always high-brow because there are little things that enhance an artistic experience, and knowing those little things comes from having an artistic background. But it's the larger picture that matters, pun intended."

"Yeah, I've been to an art gallery with an artist and I can safely say I didn't enjoy it as much as she did."

"But you enjoyed it?"

She twisted her mouth. "Yes," she admitted. "I get your point."

"Could you try to be more reluctant?"

She stuck her tongue out at him. "Obviously, I'm not as mature as you are. But you have, like, seventy years on me."

He cocked his head in curiosity. "How old are you?" Horror dawned on his face as he scrambled to say, "Wait, pretend I didn't just ask that."

"I'm twenty-six," she answered, ignoring his sudden barrage of apologies. "It's _fine_. Calm down. Tell me your age and we'll be even."

Still red, he said, "I turned twenty-nine a few months ago."

"Oh, when's your birthday?"

"July 4th." She almost spat out her coffee. He nodded at her as she mopped up a few drops that came out of her mouth despite her best efforts to swallow. "I get that a lot."

"Dude, you were destined to become Captain America. It was written in the _stars_."

He looked like he was fighting a smile. "Might have been coincidental," he said reasonably.

"The _stars_, Steve."

Smiling in earnest, he shook his head. "I was in the right place at the right time. And I was a scrawny punk who couldn't take 'no' for an answer."

She recalled the photo of Steve from the case study and remembered gawking at the difference. Looking at him now— his hands engulfing his cup of coffee, his brown leather jacket stretched tightly over his shoulders—it was even more unbelievable that that small man had become the complete beefcake sitting across from her. Beefcake, of course, being the scientific term for his physique.

He shifted under her scrutiny. "So, what'd you do this weekend?" he asked quickly, apparently eager to shift the conversation's focus off of himself.

"That was an impressive segue."

"Thank you."

She shrugged. "I came in on Saturday; worked all day. Sunday—did laundry, caught up on my journals, worked from home…"

She trailed off when his eyebrow remained raised. "You weren't kidding when you said you worked a lot," he said.

"Yes, work is my one true love," she replied solemnly. "Oh!" She brightened, clasping her hands together. "And my newts. Work and my newts are my true loves."

He didn't follow and, by the look on his face, clearly thought she meant something else entirely. "It's not a euphemism, Steve; I have three pet newts."

"Oh."

She pulled up a picture in her phone and showed it to him. He gamely pretended to care, the sweetheart. Some women were crazy cat ladies; Mal was a crazy newt lady. "Their names are Morticia, Gomez, and Wednesday—after the Addams Family, of course," she prattled.

Steve didn't get the reference. "Who?"

She smacked her forehead. Usually, he kept up so well with her that she kept forgetting he'd been asleep for seventy years. "Sorry. It's a TV show—an _amazing _TV show. The theme song is a classic."

"I'll add it to my list," he replied, handing her phone back to her.

Mal fought a smile. "You have a list of things you need to watch?" she asked. That was completely adorable. She didn't know how this man could be an imposing super soldier and a complete puppy at the same time.

"Not a physical list," he said. "Though I should probably write them down; I'm having trouble remembering everything."

She tapped her chin. She had an abundance of moleskin notebooks tucked around her apartment; it wouldn't be any trouble to part with one. She had a feeling he'd prefer using a pen to keep notes rather than entering them into his phone, like anyone else would have by now. Pushing her idea aside, she added, "There are two D's in _Addams Family_, just FYI."

He chuckled. "Noted."

They both took a pull from their cups and sighed. The silence was awkward. But in a way, the moment was a breath of fresh air. Mal had never met someone that she'd clicked with so quickly; their senses of humor were almost identical, their convictions equally fervid. Even Jemma and she hadn't become friends so quickly. It was almost eerie.

When she glanced at her watch, his eyes immediately honed in on her wrist. He seemed to be hyperaware of everything that was going on, which didn't surprise Mal. She didn't know too many field agents very well, but the few that she did know were the same: vigilant to the point that they reminded her of birds, all fast-twitch muscles and fluttering limbs.

"Am I keeping you?" he asked anxiously.

She waved her hand in front of her face. "Oh, no. I have a meeting at twelve with the head of my department and I have a tendency to lose track of time, so…"

He was completely unsurprised. "I'm sensing a pattern," he teased, laughing when her cheeks reddened.

"I know," she moaned, putting her face in her hands. "I'm late to everything. It's a problem. At last month's meeting, I was so late that my assistant had to stall for time by doing card tricks."

Steve snorted into his coffee. "Did that work?" he asked incredulously.

Equally disbelieving, she answered, "Weirdly enough, it did. But then Krantz is super chill. Like, if he got any more relaxed, he'd slip into a coma. I think he's a Buddhist…"

He grinned. "Your assistant sounds pretty easy-going, too," he said.

She smiled softly. "He's a funny guy," she said. "Total dork, but I'd be screwed without him." That was true. Colton was equal parts snarky bastard and concerned mother hen. There were many nights when he had shaken her awake so that she wouldn't miss the last bus home while other times he would drive her home himself, though he'd bitch at her the entire way. She was terribly lucky to have him as her intern assistant.

"What's his name?"

"Colton Ford. So named because he has the grace of a newborn colt." Unfortunately, this was also true; Mal had often suspected that he'd never stopped growing. He was tall and skinny and had minimal control of his extremities. And yet despite his klutziness—or perhaps because of it—he was very popular with women.

Steve smiled again, but his eyes drifted from her face to something past her left ear. His smile faded a bit. Just before she could turn around to see what had caused his solemnity, a voice came from behind her.

"Hey, Steve." Mal's knee swiftly met the underside of their table in surprise. Then Agent Romanoff was at their table, and a stone-faced Clint Barton at her side. She smiled at Mal and asked, in an inquisitive tone, "Who's your friend?"

"Mal," she blurted out before Steve could even open his mouth. She stuck her hand out. "Mallory Cohen. I'm in Biochem."

"Natasha Romanoff," she introduced herself. Mal tried not to swoon when they shook hands. Agent Romanoff narrowed her eyes at her, as if trying to recall where she'd seen her before. "We met the other day, didn't we? At the gym?"

At this point, Mal's mouth felt too dry to open. She simply jerked her head in a nod as she started ripping her paper napkin into shreds. Agent Barton watched her hands with detached interest.

Natasha smiled softly. "So, how'd you two kids get together?" she asked, gesturing between Steve and Mal. If Mal didn't know any better, she'd say that Natasha was teasing them.

Mal flushed and stammered, "O-oh, we're not—this isn't—"

"Did you need something, Nat?" Steve cut her off finally, just as Mal was sure steam was actually coming off of her cheeks.

Agent Romanoff sobered immediately. "Fury's back," she said in a clipped tone, "and he wants to see us."

He picked up his phone and checked it for messages. "You couldn't send me a text?" he asked wryly.

She shrugged. "We heard you were up here and Agent Barton wanted coffee."

Said agent had no cup of coffee in his hand and made no moves towards the counter to procure one. The excuse was surprisingly weak, but Mal was beginning to understand the dynamic between Steve and Natasha. She seemed to be rather eager to see Steve with someone, but not so eager that she was above interrupting his "dates" with flimsy excuses.

Who knew the infamous Black Widow was a matchmaker and cock-blocker-in-training? Mal was in love.

She was so distracted by Agent Romanoff's presence that Steve had to shake her arm to grab her attention. "I'm really sorry about this," he apologized.

She shook her head. "Please, Steve; if there's one thing I understand, it's work interrupting your free time," she replied.

He cracked a smile. "Yeah, that sounds about right." He stood up and paused before he left.

Natasha seemed to sense his reluctance to leave. "We'll meet you upstairs," she said immediately, shooting Mal a quick smile. "It was nice seeing you again."

"Y—you—yep," she stammered, mentally kicking herself as they walked off.

When they were gone, Steve turned back to her. "This was nice," he said.

She smiled. "I agree. We should do it again sometime."

He winced. "I think this—" he pointed at the ceiling, indicating Fury's office a few floors above them, "might be an assignment, so I may be gone for a while. But when I come back, we should definitely get together again."

"Sounds good," she replied. He made to leave. She called after him, "Hey!" he stopped and turned around. She threw him a thumbs-up. "Good luck, Cap."

He saluted her and smiled. "Don't be late for your meeting," he reminded her. She saluted him smartly in return.

She didn't stop smiling all through her meeting.

* * *

"She's cute," were the first words out of Natasha's mouth when he left the café. She and Barton were waiting for him just outside the doors, even though she'd told him they'd meet him in Fury's office.

Steve kept walking. He really wanted to avoid talking to Nat about Mal—about any woman, actually. She'd gotten into the habit of drilling him with questions whenever he even stood near a woman. And Steve was a pretty private person; he didn't think that anyone had to know anything about someone's romantic life—or lack thereof, as it was with him.

Nat and Barton attached themselves to his heels. "She looks Asian to me," she went on. "Is she Asian?"

"I'd say half," Barton chimed in. _Don't encourage her, damn it._ "And maybe Hawaiian. Or Filipino. Some kind of Pacific Islander, definitely."

Steve rubbed his forehead. "Does it matter what her race is?" he asked tiredly.

"You didn't ask?" Natasha shot back.

He punched the elevator button with a little too much force. "Well, I didn't think it mattered," he said, exasperatedly.

Though he had, admittedly, wondered what her background was. Even discounting her colored hair and thick eyeliner, she was…unorthodox in appearance. Not unpleasantly so; she just had a combination of features that he'd never seen before. From an artistic standpoint, she was a great subject.

"She did say she was from Hawaii," he murmured to himself absently.

Barton still heard him. "Nailed it."

They ignored him. "You guys going out again?" Natasha asked.

"That wasn't a date."

"I didn't say it was."

He cleared his throat. "Do you know what Fury wants?"

It was a lame attempt to steer the conversation away from his personal life. Natasha sensed it immediately, waving off the question with a flippant hand. "Some international emergency; I didn't ask."

"Sounds dull," he remarked sarcastically. She shrugged.

"Not as interesting as your date."

"It was _not_ a date." The elevator doors opened. A few analysts got out, gaping at the three former Avengers slipping past them into the elevator. Barton and Natasha ignored them while Steve held the door open, smiling tightly at them.

Barton and Natasha slipped on their sunglasses—the elevator was made entirely of glass and the sun beamed directly into it—and watched Steve smack the button for Fury's floor. Steve squinted at the door, half in reaction to the sunlight and half in annoyance.

"So…" He closed his eyes and sighed. She was obstinate, he'd give her that. "Are you just not interested in her, or…?" she trailed off.

"We're both very busy people," he said. "Neither of us have time for dating."

"But you like her."

"Ye—not like that," he caught himself. Steve _did_ like Mal; he thought she was charming and quick, but those were qualities that Steve was drawn to in potential friends, not necessarily potential girlfriends. With his forehead in his hand, he turned to look at the agents. "Do we really need to talk about this?" he asked wearily.

Nat nodded. "Yes."

"No, we don't."

She tilted her head. "Don't we?"

"Nat." Sometimes, he found Natasha's verbal gymnastics exhausting. He supposed that was her goal, though; wear your opponent down to the point where they'll answer all your questions.

She backed off, though, because Steve wasn't an opponent. He was her friend. "Fine," she said. If Steve didn't know better, he'd say she sounded sullen.

"If it's any consolation, I don't think she's too into you, anyway," Barton said wryly. Natasha crossed her arms and sighed. Her sunglasses covered her eyes, but Steve would bet good money that she rolled her eyes.

"What?"

Barton might have looked at him, but Steve couldn't see his eyes. "It's pretty obvious she's hardcore into Nat," he said, nodding his head towards her. "For a second there, I thought she was gonna swoon."

"Clint, please," she replied, making no effort to conceal her smile.

"'Swoon'?" Steve asked incredulously, smirking. Steve could give these two a hell of a hard time for being so attached at the hip that they were starting to speak the same way, but he wasn't as intrusive as they were.

"I'm aware of the affect I have on women," Natasha said in monotone and Barton cracked a genuine smile. He chalked it up to another reference he didn't understand. He _really_ needed to start writing things down.

"So what if she's into Nat?" Steve said, shrugging. It wasn't his business. Steve's number one priority at this point was to make friends, period. "We're not dating."

"You know, I think she's bi," Nat murmured to Barton, tapping her chin with her index finger. "When Steve stood up, she definitely checked out his ass."

"Yeah, but Steve's got a rockin' ass. I check it out all the time," her partner replied.

The elevator doors opened on Fury's floor. Steve stormed out into the hall towards the director's office, his cheeks blazing red, and with the sound of their laughter in his ears, he made a mental note to bombard Natasha with personal questions on their next assignment together.

* * *

**Thank you for reading! There are probably a ton of typos and I feel like it gets kind of wordy in some places, but I've been dying to post something for forever. Seriously, this story is a lot of fun to write because I love writing about dorks being super dorky and awkward. I cannot wait for Sam Wilson/Falcon to come into the picture because I loooove him. I've written little scenes with Sam/Mal interactions and they make me happy because Sam makes me happy.**

**Serious note: let me know if Steve is OOC and now that Nat is back, I want to know if you think she's in character as well. Though I do think Nat can pull off seeming OOC because she's so sly; Steve is very earnest so it's a lot more obvious when he's out of character. And I love Clint, but he's not going to be a major character in this story, so this is one of his very few appearances. **

**Please review! I love feedback.**


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4**

* * *

_North of Manaus, Brazil_

_October 28__th__, 2013_

_2:17 AMT_

"Gentlemen," Brock Rumlow said loudly over the noise of the quinjet's engines. "We're coming up on the drop site in approximately ten minutes. Let's go over this one more time."

Steve was sitting in one of the seats with his elbows on his knees and his head resting on his clasped hands when Rumlow started speaking after hours in flight. Unfortunately for all of them, the closest airstrip S.H.I.E.L.D. had an agreement with was in Cayenne, French Guiana—a good three and a half hour flight from their destination, Manaus. Combined with the fact that he was still jet-lagged and that it was two o'clock in the morning, Steve was surprised he could stay awake at all.

Thank god for Natasha Romanoff, at least. She'd watched over his slumber, glowering at anyone who tried to wake him up. He managed to sleep for most of their flight, only for her to rouse him a half an hour before the drop.

Steve stood up, shaking his limbs of their stiffness, and made his way over to where the rest of the S.T.R.I.K.E. team was gathered around a screen on the wall. He naturally gravitated towards Natasha.

It been a week since they'd seen each other; Fury had sent him to extract an agent from a facility in Siberia while Natasha was assigned to work with S.T.R.I.K.E. When it became clear that their assignment would require more muscle, Steve got on a plane to the closest S.H.I.E.L.D. base nearby, in Buenos Aires, where he was informed that he was actually in the wrong place and that they needed him in Cayenne instead.

After days of bouncing around the world, Steve realized that, unfortunately for him, S.H.I.E.L.D. did not have a large presence in South America.

Rumlow eyed him as he stared blankly ahead, ruminating on his busy week. "You alright, Cap?" he asked dryly, though not unkindly. His call to order was mainly for Steve's benefit; everyone else had already been on the job for weeks and knew all the details.

Steve shook his head vigorously to wake himself up. "I'm great," he replied with a small smile. "The floor's yours."

Rumlow nodded and uncrossed his arms, swiping his hand across the screen. A photo of a man with a severe face appeared.

"Dmitry Fyodorov. Made most of his fortune as one of the Russian oligarchs back in the 90's. This guy had ties to the Russian mafia before he sold out a couple of _vory_ to the authorities—to take some heat off of his own illicit activities, we presume. Since then, he's been keeping a low profile while gathering the largest known private collection of alien tech in the world." With a flick of his wrist, he brought up photos of shards of metal, a few orbs, a staff.

"Our man Cardoso has informed us that Fyodorov has at least twenty-five artifacts in his collection—two of which are fully-functional weapons. S.H.I.E.L.D.'s let him be because thus far, he's been pretty reliable. His vault is impenetrable—it has a retina scanner, a voice command lock, and a personalized eight digit code that he changes every week; Cardoso called it the 'Fort Knox' of vault doors. If anyone other than Fyodorov even attempts to open it, the whole thing shuts down for twenty-four hours." Rumlow smirked. "He's been our little safety deposit box."

"What changed?" Steve asked. If the artifacts were so secure, something had to have changed for S.H.I.E.L.D. to intervene.

Rumlow sobered. "Fyodorov is low on funds, that's what changed. Cardoso tells us that he's looking to sell one of his weapons. As of his last transmission, the highest bid is 15 million US dollars."

The other agents muttered to each other as Steve raised his eyebrows. The sum seemed impossibly high, especially for one tiny piece of alien technology.

"S.H.I.E.L.D. does not abide by this. We're confiscating his collection and bringing him into custody," Rumlow finished. As an afterthought, he added, "And we're bringing our man Cardoso home."

Steve frowned. It annoyed him how everyone in S.H.I.E.L.D. seemed to think of their agents as collateral damage, but he had no time to dwell on it. Rumlow was motioning for Steve to take a closer look at the map of the facility.

"Captain, you're landing here—" he pointed to a section of the Amazon River that was about two klicks west of his compound. "From there, you'll make your way over to Fyodorov's private runway. As soon as you secure it, radio the jet; we'll land and then we move on the compound.

"There are three above-ground floors—most likely, that's where Fyodorov will be. We need him _alive_—" he drew the word out long and loud, staring down each of his subordinates in turn. "—I'll repeat that: _alive_. We need him to open the vault.

"Which brings me to my next point—no one is to try to open the vault. We don't want to be here any longer than we have to and if someone punches in the wrong code or accidently scans their retina, we'll be here an additional twenty four hours. _Do not attempt to open the vault_. Am I clear?"

"Yes, sir," the S.T.R.I.K.E. team returned immediately.

Rumlow nodded his approval and brought up yet another grainy photo of heavily armed men patrolling a runway. Steve assumed this was what he was securing.

"His security is made up entirely of private military contractors from a Brazilian security firm called _Os Soldados Amazonas_. They're very well-trained, but not known for their loyalty. Once we take the facility and Fyodorov, the mercenaries will lay down their arms and negotiate for their release." There were annoyed murmurs at that.

Rumlow smiled grimly in response. "So don't feel too bad if your bullets find themselves in their skulls."

The annoyed sounds turned into chuckles. Steve grimaced, glancing at Natasha. She was stone-faced, but said nothing.

And Steve suddenly remembered why he didn't like working with S.T.R.I.K.E.; they seemed to derive a little too much pleasure from cruelty. But if this is where S.H.I.E.L.D. needed him, then this was where he'd be, even if he felt cold under their collectively blank gaze.

There was a warning beep from the front of the plane. "Drop in sixty seconds," the pilot called up.

"Cap, you're up," Rumlow said. "Good luck."

Steve nodded sharply. He grabbed his helmet and shield from his seat. As he strapped them on, Natasha sidled up beside him.

"So, what are you doing for Halloween?" she asked, as though they weren't about to storm a Russian oligarch's secret underground museum of alien paraphernalia.

"Nat, I'm jumping out of a plane in thirty seconds," he stated succinctly.

She apparently didn't think that that was a good excuse to avoid the question. She stayed close behind him as he walked over towards the back of the plane, carefully stepping around the agents strapping themselves back into their seats. The loading door slowly flipped down, brushing the thick clouds beneath them. In terms of visibility, the darkness of the early morning and the cloud cover made this drop comparable to jumping into black paint. They were not optimal conditions to be working in, but here he was.

"You jump out of planes every other week," Natasha pointed out. "At this point, I think the only reason they call you in is because S.H.I.E.L.D. doesn't want to spring for more parachutes."

"Hardy har har." Though now that he thought about it, he _did_ jump out of a lot of planes.

"Fifteen seconds to drop," Rumlow called from the front of the quinjet. Steve waved to let him know he heard.

Nat followed him to the edge and watched him put his goggles over his eyes with crossed arms. "You and Mal doing anything fun? I heard Jess from accounting is having a party."

He sighed, heavily enough that she could hear him over the jet engines. "You know, I really doubt we're gonna be back by Halloween, so the conversation's moot, don't you think?"

And as always, the only time Steve ever got the last word in a conversation with Natasha was when he jumped out of a plane.

* * *

_The Triskelion, Washington D.C._

_October 31__st__, 2013_

_8:18 EST_

"Aw, Ash, you look so cute!" Mal gushed when she came into the lab on Halloween and found the intern wearing orange cat ears.

She beamed. "Thanks. Uhura?"

Mal did a spin in her red Starfleet dress, her lab coat spinning with her. "You know it."

"Nerd!"

Mal put her hands on her hips and frowned at Colton, across the lab at his desk. He wore a plaid button-down and black slacks with his lab coat on top—the same thing he wore every other day of the year. "What the hell are you supposed to be?"

He threw his legs up onto his desk and leaned back in his chair. "A dude who hates Halloween," he replied, gesturing across his torso. "Did I nail it?"

She ignored the question, and went to his desk. It was a horrible mess, but he seemed to know where everything was, so she hadn't insisted that he clean it. She just pretended not to see it whenever she came into the lab. They'd had no problems yet. "I would've thought you'd love Halloween," she said, shrugging. "You know, 'cause free candy."

"Yeah, for kids," he retorted. "Not for twenty-nine-year-old dudes trolling the neighborhood."

"Oh, really?" She reached into her coat pocket and pulled out a box of candy. "So, I guess I should give these Jujubes to my neighbor's kids…"

He sat up so quickly that he kicked a photo off of his desk. "You bought that for me?" he squeaked.

"Apparently, I bought it for my neighbor's kids," she replied with a shrug, slipping it back into her pocket. "And let me tell you—those kids do _not_ need more sugar. I let them play with my newts yesterday and the littler one almost frosted my apartment with Tish's guts."

Despite his excitement, he rolled his eyes at her. "You've _got_ to stop saying that. It makes you sound creepy at best."

"Play with my newts?"

He shivered. "I get the heebies just hearing the words."

"Here are some Jujubes to go with your heebies." She tossed the box to him.

He ripped it open in half a second. Through a mouthful, he asked, "Heebie-jujeebees?"

"Heebie-jujubebees." She shook her head. "Never mind. You like Jujubes, right?"

"They're my favorite!" he chirped, looking nothing like his usually snippy self. It was definitely worth two bucks and an extra trip to the candy store. "I can't believe you remembered!"

"When we first met, you told me your name and your favorite candy, so I assumed it was an important factoid," she reminded him, picking up his fallen photo. When she curiously turned it over, she yelped and nearly threw it at the window in surprise.

"Colton, why the _hell _is there a framed photo of Director Fury on your desk?"

He snatched it out of her hands and set it gently back onto his desk, beside his framed memo from Fury. "We all fight for someone, Mal," he said defensively.

She groaned. "You are the weirdest person I've ever met." And she knew two people who were entirely blue.

"Oh, so a grown man can't have a photo of another grown man on his desk without it being weird?" He threw his index finger in Ashley's direction. "Ash's had a picture of a little boy on her desk for years and nobody's said anything about that!"

"That's my nephew," Ash snapped before faltering. "He has CF…"

"Oh, god, I'm so sorry."

Mal rubbed her forehead. "Jesus Christ." She regretted asking. "Look, I need you to check on TS-M 7's stem cells; make sure they're ready for testing with TS-H control, okay?"

"Right, which one's that? Is that Salamander or Blue Man Group reject?"

Internally, she bristled. She reminded herself that he didn't know and answered coolly, "It's Salamander, but from now on, you need to refer to the samples by their proper titles."

He popped another jujube into his mouth and shrugged. "Or we could just call them by their actual names," he suggested. He meant the names of the people who donated their blood for her project, of course.

She gave him a small smile and walked away from his desk. He knew that she meant for him to follow her, though, and did so accordingly. She started setting up the materials they needed as he removed the stem cells from the freezer.

"These samples are anonymous donations, Colt," she said softly to him as he carefully laid out the petri dishes on the table. "Even I don't know their names."

"Yeah, yeah," he said dismissively.

She didn't like to lie. Yet it seemed like her primary mode of communication nowadays. As he tinkered around, she thought back to her brief trip to New York in July, where she collected every single blood sample with her own hands. How reluctant Logan had been to stick out his arm, how Hank had excitedly chatted with her about her project, and of course how many refused to take part at all.

She understood. Mal herself was terrified that their genetic material would fall into unsavory hands, or even simply curious ones. So she put together a system that Colton deemed "paranoid" and "unnecessary"; she was the only one who had access to the blood samples, which she kept locked in her specially ordered silver briefcase that required a four-digit passcode and her fingerprint. If anyone other than her even tried to open it, the tubes would be crushed and doused in sodium hydroxide, degrading the DNA molecules into unusable wrecks. At work, she kept it in a safe under her desk; when she brought it home, it went into a safe behind one of her paintings.

Was it paranoid? Maybe. But nothing had happened to her samples yet, so she would continue to be paranoid.

"You ready, Dr. Cohen?" Colton's voice shook her from her thoughts. She smiled at him.

"Absolutely, Dr. Ford."

He rubbed his hands together eagerly and said to the petri dish of mutant stem cells, "Salamander, prepare to meet normal human."

Her smile disappeared. She had always hated the name Salamander, but it was hers nonetheless.

* * *

_Fyodorov Compound, north of Manaus, Brazil_

_October 28__th__, 2013_

_5:45 AMT_

Fyodorov was wearing pajamas when the S.T.R.I.K.E. team dragged him from his bed and they never let him change. As he sat in his enormous sitting room—the most opulent room Steve had ever seen in his life, which was saying something because he'd been inside Stark Tower—in a matching baby blue silk shirt and pants pajama set, his hands cuffed in front of his body and his mouth humming with non-stop Russian, Steve found it hard to imagine the man within ten feet of a mobster, let alone being good friends with one.

But no matter what they said to him, he refused to divulge the vault code. So at least he had determination going for him.

Leaning towards Rumlow, Steve asked quietly, "What's he saying?" He gestured to the shivering oligarch, still mumbling in Russian.

The S.T.R.I.K.E. team leader rolled his eyes. "He wants his lawyer."

Well.

He motioned to Steve to follow him out into the hall, quickly ordering two more agents inside to keep him heavily guarded. Natasha met them outside, looking completely unruffled. But after a few months of working with her, Steve was beginning to decipher certain looks.

She was very annoyed.

"Someone punched in the wrong code," she informed them crisply. "Vault's locked down; we can't try again until 0245 tomorrow."

Rumlow clenched his jaw. "Was it one of ours?" he asked dangerously. For all of their sakes, Steve hoped it wasn't one of their agents.

Mercifully, she shook her head. "Couldn't have been. The team wasn't down there until 0250. One of Fyodorov's men must have done it to delay us."

"Doesn't matter, anyway," Steve said, jabbing his thumb over his shoulder towards the sitting room, "Fyodorov's not cooperating."

He shook his head, smiling wryly at Natasha. "Guess we're not gonna get back before Halloween," he added quietly, referring to their conversation a few hours before.

He didn't intend it as a challenge, just a mere statement of fact. But Natasha narrowed her eyes at him, as though he was responsible for the delay himself and ordered Rumlow, "Let me talk to him."

The agent motioned to the door. "Be my guest."

She opened the door, never taking her eyes off of Steve as she entered the room. He crossed his arms, suddenly feeling like she could see through his skin. Even when she was out of the hallway, the feeling didn't disappear.

Rumlow eyed him suspiciously. "You two have a bet going or something?" he asked.

Steve didn't feel like explaining. "No. She's just…odd."

He shrugged. "Whatever. She's our kind of odd." He nodded at the door. The four agents that had been guarding Fyodorov came out of it, looking thoroughly shellacked. The lock clicked ominously behind them. He smirked to Steve. "She'll have him begging us to take away his alien toys in half an hour, tops."

There was a little too much sadistic joy in his voice for Steve to respond honestly. Instead, he shifted the conversation towards the alien tech. "How did he even get all of this stuff anyway? I mean, how many alien invasions have there been besides New York?"

Rumlow motioned for Steve to follow him down the stairs. "Technically, New Mexico is considered an alien invasion," he corrected him. He couldn't see Steve frown at his back. The Asgardians were their allies; their crown prince was an Avenger, for god's sake.

Before Steve could object, Rumlow continued, "But that's beside the point. You have to realize that the Asgardians and the Chitauri are only two of hundreds or thousands more species within spitting distance of Earth."

Steve did not realize that. "Hundreds," he repeated faintly.

"Or thousands." He shrugged and they went down the stairs. In the darkness, he continued to speak, "Thankfully, they're only interested in using our planet as a repository for all their broken shit."

The basement was decidedly less glamorous than the top floors, but the vault door looked like it cost more than everything else combined.

Rumlow had the same thought. "No wonder he was looking to sell," he scoffed. "Tony freakin' Stark would think this was too much."

A smile crept onto his face despite himself. Even if the man wasn't here to defend himself, Steve couldn't help but enjoy a joke at Tony Stark's expense. "It's doing its job, though," he said, shrugging. It was keeping them out.

"Annoyingly."

Steve changed the subject. "What are we going to do if he doesn't cooperate?"

"Black Widow is raking him over the coals; he's _going_ to cooperate." There wasn't the slightest hint of doubt in his tone.

"But what if he doesn't? Are we going to destroy the vault?"

"Destroy the largest private collection of alien tech on the planet?" Rumlow raised an eyebrow. "That'll go over great with Fury. But there's nothing short of a nuclear bomb that can destroy this vault. The walls are reinforced with adamantium—it's a metal alloy that's stronger than vibranium," he explained, pointing at the shield strapped to Steve's back. "It doesn't matter. We'll get the codes out of Fyodorov one way or another."

It was a threat if Steve had ever heard one. He frowned again. He really hoped Natasha could charm the codes out of him, but there were no guarantees. Steve had never known someone who could be honey and vinegar simultaneously until he'd met the Black Widow.

"Agent Romanoff," Rumlow said when she appeared before them. He checked his watch. "Half an hour," he muttered to Steve before asking her, "Fyodorov?"

"He's going to cooperate," Natasha answered.

Rumlow smiled grimly in satisfaction. "Any catch?"

Dead serious, she replied, "We have to let him change out of his pajamas before we bring him in."

Steve was not so sober. He smiled and said, "Fair enough."

* * *

_The Triskelion, Washington D.C._

_October 31__st__, 2013_

_20:24 EST_

"Damn it," Mal hissed as she looked over the results of her experiment. "Damn it. Damn."

She was wrong. Again.

Her head fell into her hands, her eyes closing as she sighed. "What the hell were you expecting, Cohen?" she muttered to herself.

When she started this project in June, she knew she wouldn't be completing her life's work in three months, but she'd hoped that she would be making more progress than she had thus far. She was just glad that no one else was here to see her holding back tears, especially not Esposito. She was sure Jen would be ecstatic to see her failure.

All of her coworkers had left on time that day. Mal had considered leaving as well, if only to cuddle up on her couch and polish off her pint of Chunky Monkey, but decided to work overtime to correlate some new data. But that didn't stop her from living vicariously through her more social coworkers.

"I'm going trick-or-treating with my brother and his family in Bethesda," Ashley had said when Mal asked what she was doing that night. "Kyle _loves _Iron Man, so my brother made him a tiny Iron Man costume out of cardboard."

"Aw," Mal had gushed, laying a hand over her heart. "That's so sweet. Take lots of pictures, okay?"

"Oh, my god, of course. I bought a new 32 gig memory chip specifically for Halloween; I'm _so_ prepared."

They laughed together. As Colton passed them to leave, Ashley stopped him. "What are you up to tonight?"

"_Not_ trick-or-treating," he replied briskly. "Marley and me are hitting the Blue Door. It's a club," he clarified when Mal looked confused. "She's super into Halloween. It's a nightmare."

"Aw, poor Colton," Mal teased. "In a relationship with a fun person."

He ignored her. "At least she's dieting; maybe she'll give me all of her candy."

"At least." Mal rolled her eyes. They said their goodbyes and then he was gone.

Before Ashley could take her leave as well, Mal nodded towards a silent Esposito gathering up her purse and asked Ash quietly, "What's she doing? Ripping a bat's head off with her teeth to scare off the neighborhood kids?"

Ashley, being Esposito's assistant, pursed her lips at Mal. "I think you're confusing her with Ozzy Osbourne."

"I know, that was mean." She shook her head. "Seriously, though, I'm curious."

Ash narrowed her eyes in thought. "I think she's taking her daughter trick-or-treating," she said. "I don't remember. She told me a few weeks ago."

Mal's eyebrows met her hairline. "She has a kid?"

"On the weekends and occasional holidays," Ash replied. "She and her husband split up a year ago."

"I didn't know that," Mal said faintly. "She's so young."

Then, as if she knew they were gossiping about her private life, Esposito's head snapped towards them, fury burning in her dark eyes. Ash squeaked in surprise while Mal smiled and waved. She scrutinized them for a second before storming out without a word.

"I've stared into the abyss," Mal said absently, laughing when Ash playfully shoved her shoulder. "Have fun tonight, okay?"

Ashley frowned at her. "You're not staying at work, are you?" she asked.

She tried to smile reassuringly but it came out as more of a grimace. "I am. But really, it's fine," she rushed to reassure Ash. "I have to monitor the TS-M/H dishes and I'm anxious to know how it turned out."

Mal never got more specific than that with anyone other than Colton. The research division of S.H.I.E.L.D. was competitive—people were always looking to steal projects from under each other's noses—so she kept her results to herself. Thankfully, Ashley knew this and didn't pry further. Instead, she offered, "Why don't you come trick-or-treating with us? I know that sounds kind of lame, but it'll be fun. And Kyle likes sharing so you might get some candy."

She smiled. "That's adorable…but I'm going to stay here."

Ashley's frown deepened. But she easily conceded, "Fine." Mal nodded. Ashley pointed at her. "But one of these days, we're going to have a girl's night and watch movies and eat chocolate, alright? I promise."

"You're a sweet kid, Ash."

"I'm older than you."

"Get out of here, kiddo." And then Mal was alone in the lab.

Mal didn't like working alone, or being alone, or thinking about being alone, or even the movie _Home Alone_. She was adverse to the whole concept. And yet she found herself alone so often nowadays that she wondered if she didn't actually enjoy the solitude. Because no sane person would put themselves in a situation so many times unless they secretly enjoyed it.

"It's better this way," she told herself, to reassure herself and to hear something other than silence.

It was safer, at least. Half of her research she didn't want on the record—at least not on S.H.I.E.L.D. record—so it was better that no one was here to document her findings. Colton usually did all of the documenting. She trusted him, but not enough.

She didn't trust anyone with her secret, not even her best friend of eight years, Jemma Simmons. Though that had more to do with the fact that she was the worst liar she'd ever met. And she might've trusted Fitz with it, but he couldn't keep secrets from Jemma.

No one but her family knew that she was a mutant. And that family was her parents and the X-Men, even if they shared no blood.

"Speaking of blood…" she murmured, standing from her stool to examine the petri dishes with a mixture of mutant and human stem cells. The mutant stem cells she produced from her own blood, while the human's came from an actual anonymous donor.

And found that once again, her hypotheses were wrong.

"Damn it."

The human stem cells were rejecting the mutant ones. "If that ain't poetic, then I don't know what is," she muttered. "Even on a cellular level, you hate us."

She immediately regretted saying it, even if there was no one around to hear her. She knew not all humans hated mutants. Her parents didn't hate them. Her old professors at Columbia didn't hate them. And, even without knowing that Mal was one of them, Jemma had often proclaimed her support for mutant rights. It was unfair of her to think that humans were all the same.

"After all, we all need to be on board for there to be peaceful coexistence, right?" she said, smiling weakly at the petri dishes.

Predictably, the stem cells didn't offer their opinions on the matter.

She sighed, resting her head on her arms. "My stem cells could save your life," she said into the sleeve of her lab coat. "But I guess you only want the specific gene, right? You can't make this easy for anyone."

She'd been fearful of trying to isolate the X-gene in her DNA. Several genome-wide association studies had been conducted specifically to locate said gene, with very little success. Unlike most genes, which could be found on the same chromosome of every person with that gene, the x-gene was elusive; it shifted from person to person.

Calling them 'mutants' implied that they had all something in common, but the truth seemed to be the opposite. Mutants were more diverse with one another than they were different from wild type humans. If she wanted to isolate the gene in her own genome, she could only use her genome. No comparisons. That at least tripled the amount of time it would take to find it.

After going through it all, she only had one thought:

"I'm going to be here forever."

* * *

_The Triskelion, Washington D.C._

_October 31__st__, 2013_

_23:47 EST_

"It's still Halloween," Natasha said to him as they stood on the roof of the Triskelion, watching the quinjet that had dropped them off fly away.

He glanced at his watch. "For another ten minutes, yes. You were technically right; we made it back for Halloween."

Her face didn't change. "So, what are you going to do?"

"Go home…?" By the look on her face, this was not the correct answer. He sighed. "It's late, Nat. And we've been in the air for twelve hours."

"Yeah, and it's not like you slept for eight of those," she remarked wryly before shaking her head. "Whatever. It'd be better to go out on Saturday, anyway."

He silently decided against that as well. "Sure."

They stopped in front of the elevator. Natasha glanced at him out of the corner of her eye. "Mal's office number is 18-C," she said suddenly. "Apparently, she works late most nights."

He didn't need to ask her how she knew this. "That's great."

They stepped into the elevator. But just as he reached to press the button for Fury's office, Natasha's hand darted forward and hit the eighteenth. "Fury's not in," she said in explanation.

He sighed. "Natasha…"

She ignored him and continued, "She doesn't have a car and the buses stop running at eleven."

"I don't have a car either."

Her keys hit him in the chest. Rubbing his chest, he glared at her. She gestured to his pocket. "Give me yours."

Reluctantly, he pulled motorcycle keys out. Before she could close her fingers around them, he lifted them out of her grasp and said, "My helmet is in the gym. _Wear it._"

She made a noncommittal sound of agreement. But before he could ensure that she wouldn't go speeding off into the night without the proper safety precautions, the elevator opened up onto the eighteenth floor and she was hustling him out.

"Don't crash my car; it's new and expensive," she warned him.

He stuck his foot in the door before it closed. "What if she's not even here?" he asked. "She probably went out. Who works late on Halloween?"

_Besides us, I mean._

"If she's not here, then you still get to drive my car," she replied dryly. "It's a no-lose scenario." She brought her foot down onto his, just hard enough to startle him out of the threshold. "Bye, Steve."

"Nat—" But the doors were already closing on his face.

Steve had not been on many of the Triskelion's floors, but the ones that he did frequent weren't research floors, so the layout was completely foreign to him. Across from the elevator, there was a laboratory labeled 18-L1; next to it, another laboratory labeled 18-L2. A quick jog down the hall revealed to him that they were all laboratories.

At the end of the hall, he heard something strange. Curiously, he followed the noise—hard, shaking beats that shook his ribcage more and more the closer he got to the source.

And of course the source was 18-C. The glass door was flung wide open, so Steve poked his head in without knocking.

Mal stood in front of a holographic screen in the middle of her office, absently bobbing her head to the beeping sound of her music. It was probably the worst thing Steve had ever heard.

"Hey," he shouted over the sound.

She whirled around. When she saw him, she grinned hugely. "Hey! I didn't think you'd be back so soon!"

"Neither did I," he said. "Could you turn this down?" He gestured around the room. The sound seemed to be coming from everywhere.

She pressed a button on the screen. Blissfully, the music stopped, but his ears were still ringing. "Sorry," she apologized sheepishly. "I don't play my music out loud unless I know everyone is gone."

Only partly joking, he asked, "That was music?"

Her mouth fell open in playful indignation. "Wow, okay," she said, unable to keep out a hint of laughter in her voice. "You come to _my_ place of work and say these negative things..."

He smiled at her growing one. "I know, that was rude."

She waved him off. "Nah, it's okay. The older generations just don't get dubstep, man."

Sometimes, people said the most bizarre things that Steve didn't even know what to ask for clarification. "I don't want to get it."

Mal laughed. When her giggles subsided, she noted his disheveled appearance from sleeping on the plane. "Did you just get back?" she asked.

"Yeah, about ten minutes ago," he said, shifting his shield on his back.

"You missed Halloween!" she cried. She sounded far more devastated than he did about the fact. For whatever reason, people really seemed to enjoy Halloween.

"I did, but I think I'll live. Besides, you're still here at—" he checked his watch, "—five to midnight. You didn't want to go out?"

"I did, but everyone I know is doing their own thing. I didn't want to be a third wheel." She shrugged. "But I dressed up!" She waved her hands over her dress in a manner that he was clearly supposed to understand.

When his blank expression didn't change, she said, "Uhura? From _Star Trek_?"

"Is that related to _Star Wars_?"

"No, and try not to get them confused. People get pretty crazy about it."

_Noted_.

She snapped her fingers and pointed at his confused face. "That reminds me."

"My ignorance reminds you."

She went behind her desk and started throwing open drawers, rummaging through a few and making annoyed sounds under her breath. After a few moments of this, she cried out triumphantly.

"I got you something," she said and handed him a small package, wrapped in red and green paper, sporting reindeer wearing Christmas sweaters.

"You know Christmas is in December, right?" he asked with a smirk, turning the present over in his hands.

She shrugged. "It's a really late birthday present, but that's the only wrapping paper I have."

His smile became a frown. It wasn't like she'd missed his birthday; they didn't even know each other when it passed him by with little fanfare. "You didn't have to…" he started to say.

Mal rolled her eyes. "It's a gift, Cap. That's the point."

"But seriously—"

"Steve," she interrupted him with a hand on his arm. "It's not a diamond necklace; it cost me, like, ten bucks." When he only stared at it, she raised her eyebrows expectantly. "Are you gonna open it or what?"

"Right." He carefully peeled the tape off of the edges, taking extra care not to rip the paper. Even with more money than he knew what to do with, Steve couldn't shake his Depression-grown thriftiness.

Mal huffed impatiently. "Are you serious right now?"

"I'm going to reuse this paper," he said defensively, carefully folding it and placing in his inner coat pocket. He made a mental note to take it out before he put it in the washing machine.

It was a small, pocket-sized notebook. Silently, he flipped through the mostly empty pages. The first few pages had a list written in a careful hand; at the top, it read _The Addams Family (1964 TV show and 1990 movie)_.

"I thought you'd like something to write stuff down in," she said anxiously when he was quiet for a long time, perusing the titles. "I added a few things I thought you should see or read."

"Thank you," he said finally, knowing that he should've said something sooner. But he'd been so touched by her gesture that he didn't know what to say. "_Thank you._ This is…so thoughtful of you."

She preened under his gratitude. "Don't forget to add _Star Trek_ on there."

He plucked a pen out of the mug on her desk and scribbled the title at the bottom of the list. "Got it." When he replaced it, he caught a glimpse of the name on the mug. He asked, "You went to Columbia?"

"For grad school, yeah."

At least colleges were the same. "That's very impressive."

"Thanks. Did you go to college?"

"Art school," he replied absently, more interested in the photographs on her desk. There were only two: one of Mal hugging a young man and a young woman, all three of them wearing lab coats, and one of an elderly couple in front of a small, brightly painted house.

He picked this one up. "Oh, are these your…" He froze; he couldn't tell if they were her grandparents or parents. He had a fifty-fifty chance of being offensive and he didn't really want to gamble.

"Unclench, Rogers," she said with a laugh. "They're my parents and yeah, they adopted me pretty late in their lives."

"Adopted?" He was full of stupid questions today.

"Yeah," she said. She gestured to her face and then to the photo. "We don't look too related. And I know I've gotten pretty pale from spending all my time indoors, but if I spent, like, five minutes in the sun, I'd be the color of this desk."

He glanced down at her desk. It was jet black, almost blue.

"A bit of an exaggeration," she amended when he raised an incredulous eyebrow. "My point is that I'm very clearly Hawaiian and they're not. Hawaiian, Japanese, Norwegian, and Irish," she added; rapid-fire, like she was testing herself. "I know you didn't ask, but as a geneticist, I felt like I was missing a huge part of my personal biology before I knew what race I was. Of course, the word 'race' is totally inaccurate from a biological standpoint; we're all the same species. But then sociologists say that an ethnicity is an entirely social construct, so that doesn't work so well in a scientific setting. Most accurately, 'races' are 'breeds', but of course that makes us sound like dogs—"

"Okay," he interrupted, sensing that she was only winding herself up with no point.

She took off her glasses, sighing as she rubbed the bridge of her nose. "Sorry, I'm a little tired."

"How long have you been here?"

She thought about it. "Since eight."

"So, you've been working for sixteen hours."

Her mouth opened and closed as she tried to refute him. "I took a long lunch," she said lamely.

He shook his head. "I'll give you a ride home," he said.

She clasped her hands together gratefully. "That would be amazing, thank you. You are a life saver." She started packing up her things, but continued to babble. "But not the candy. I have the candy; do you want any?"

Steve smiled. "They still make Lifesavers?" Soldiers used to get them with their rations back during the war.

"Of course, they're delicious," she said matter-of-factly, tossing aside some candy wrappers on her desk in her search. "Here." She tossed the roll to him.

"I haven't had these in seventy years," he mused to himself, popping one into his mouth. They were sweeter than he remembered, but familiar enough. Because suddenly he was in Italy, Bucky sitting beside him under a canopy tent, sharing their meager rations of candy as they talked about what they were going to do when they got home.

They'd had big plans and they only ever confided in one another. But even then Steve knew that Bucky never expected to make it out alive. At the time, Steve brushed off his morbid thoughts with the comforting reminder that Bucky was a pessimist; of course he was bound to assume the worst. Steve hated that he'd been right.

Yet despite having low expectations for his own life, Bucky had never seemed to doubt that Steve would come home and live the life he'd planned—marry a pretty girl, have a gaggle of kids, publish comics, grow old. But Steve only got old; the growing was yet to come.

They were both wrong, in the end.

He didn't realize that he had frozen in place, staring at the roll of candy, until Mal cleared her throat. "You okay?" she asked softly.

"Yeah, I'm alright," he said, shaking his head to shake away the memory. "It's strange, though. Sometimes, all I want is for things to be the way they were, but then when they are, I realize that it's harder to move on, you know?"

She twisted her lips, furrowing her brow in worry. "I take it you're not talking about the candy?"

She couldn't possibly know. It was pretty difficult to find anyone who understood what he was saying. Sometimes, Steve didn't understand what he was saying, but then he barely understood what he was feeling, either.

"Sorry," he apologized before she could say another word. "There isn't anything to say to that."

She sighed, slung her messenger bag over her shoulder, and circled around her desk to stand beside him. "Don't apologize," she ordered, but it was gentle. "I can't possibly understand everything you're going through, but if it helps you to talk about it, then by all means, do it." She smirked wryly. "I'm a pretty good listener when you get me to stop talking."

Despite himself, he laughed. They left her office. She locked the door behind them, turning to him with a gleam in her eye. "Hey, you know what I just realized?"

"What's that?"

"You have seventy years of candy to make up for."

He laughed again and was glad she was there, as sleep-deprived as she was. "That is the sole reason I get up in the morning," he replied cheekily.

She grinned and so did he.

* * *

**This one got away from me. I'm really trying to write shorter chapters, especially because this one is mostly filler. And it weirdly became a Halloween episode, so yay, Halloween in July! **

**Sorry this one was later than usual; I was hoping to get it out on the 4th (you know, 'cause America), but obviously that did not happen. **

**Anyway, please review! even if it's just to tell me how underwhelmed you were by this chapter because, trust me, I'm with you on that front. I might come back and rewrite this one sometime.**


	5. Chapter 5

**Disclaimer: I don't own Marvel.**

* * *

**Chapter 5**

* * *

_The Triskelion, Washington D.C._

_November 5__th__, 2013_

For the most part, Mal liked her job at the Triskelion. It paid well, the commute was convenient, and she had a sweet-ass corner office. Most importantly, though, it was relatively stress-free.

Her superior, Dr. Krantz, had taken an immediate liking to her when she'd first started four months earlier, so she never stressed over getting fired or losing her funding. Despite his fondness for her stupid jokes, however, he clearly didn't give half a damn about her project outside of his administrative interest, so she only had to show him her results once a month. Mal knew that there were some projects—usually pertaining to the super soldier serum—that got extra scrutiny. She was ridiculously thankful that no one found her project as interesting as those.

She also got along well enough with the people she worked with. Colton, though occasionally difficult to deal with, proved himself to be competent and obedient, with just enough humor to play off of her. Ashley was kind-hearted. Esposito wasn't even close to being a friend, but her dark moods rarely affected Mal, so she had no trouble there.

Some people thrived under pressure. Mal was not one of those people. It was one of the reasons why she'd never actually joined the X-Men; she was about as useful as a headless chicken in high stress situations. Several times, Logan had tried to train her out of her fear by putting her through ruthless combat training.

"Why do I have to fight?" she'd whined as Logan did his best to ignore her. "The professor doesn't have to!"

"The professor can brainwash people into thinking they're bowls of oatmeal," he'd retorted. "Hands up, kid."

She'd held them up as if she was expecting a double high five. He'd narrowed his eyes and her hands curled into fists on their own.

The next thing she knew, she was lying in the infirmary, listening to Jean Grey and Ororo Munroe verbally eviscerate Logan for his carelessness.

"How the hell was I supposed to know she'd freeze up?" he'd asked defensively. Mal remembered lying there, thinking that he made a good point. She was probably the first student he'd had that had no talent for combat.

Jean had countered with her own valid point, "She's a fifteen-year-old with no combat experience and you thought punching at full strength was a good idea?"

He'd had nothing to say to that. And whenever he tried to train her again, she only needed to remind him of what had happened last time to make him back off. So, her role in the X-Men had been limited to one of a non-combatant. It was just a nice way of saying that when the team went to answer a threat, she stayed at the mansion and babysat—meaning she put on an animated film for the kids while she studied Calculus and ate Kitty's hidden stores of chocolate. It was infinitely less stressful than fighting and Mal was grateful for it. She didn't handle stress well.

So most days, working at the Triskelion was quite nice—preferable to lounging around her apartment, even.

Today was not one of those days.

The chaos started the day before, when Mal was in the laboratory. Whenever Esposito was in the lab, there was nothing but dead silence. She couldn't work with any human noise, as she made clear every time one of them opened their mouths to speak.

It started off with a few scientists sprinting past the window in the hallway. Then a few more. Then the stream was non-stop, to the point that even Mal was annoyed.

Esposito, however, was livid. She opened the glass door, stuck her hand out, and yanked in an unfortunate scientist by his coat collar.

"What the hell is going on?" she snapped.

The scientist blanched. Mal recognized him as the guy they all called Soum because he began all of his sentences the same way. "So, um, yeah, there's a giant 'T' attacking Greenwich right now."

Colton was confused. "A T…Rex?"

Because apparently dinosaurs were now so commonplace that that was a plausible explanation. Mal shot him a disbelieving look, which was summarily ignored.

Soum shook his head. "No, like the letter." This didn't make anything clearer, but Soum didn't feel the need to explain further. He turned back to Esposito. "So, um, Jen, you're the only one with a TV in your office. Do you think we can watch the news?"

"Don't you people have work to do?" she said, crossing her arms.

But already, everyone was getting up and hustling out of the lab, following the other researchers down the hall to Esposito's office. Colton clapped his hand on her back and said, "C'mon, Jen, the national beverage of Britain is finally getting its revenge."

"No, um, not 'T-E-A'; just the 'T'."

Colton cocked his head. "Soum, are you coming on to me?"

Before that conversation could go anywhere, Esposito mercifully interrupted with an exasperated, "Fine."

Mal shook her head at Colton. He winked. _Prick_.

Every scientist on their floor was nervously pacing outside of Esposito's office, a few murmuring worriedly to one another. Some of the interns had their phones out, dictating the articles to their older bosses.

"Move," Jen snarled. The crowd parted like she was Moses and they were the Red Sea. Everyone was afraid of Esposito. Mal suspected that even Dr. Krantz was afraid of her.

When the TV flickered on, the room fell silent. Ashley's hand went over her mouth. "Oh my god," someone whispered, horrified.

Soum had described the situation surprisingly accurately. The alien ship had ripped straight through a plaza right off the Thames (Mal didn't know exactly where in Greenwich). Strange humanoid creatures with white faces and pointed ears marched out of the ship carrying enormous guns.

"What the hell are they?" she heard someone ask.

"Not Asgardians."

"Yeah, I can puzzle that out, dipshit."

"Quiet!" Esposito barked, but even she couldn't keep them silent when they saw _him_.

"It's Thor!"

"No way; no one's seen him since New York!"

"Who's he fighting?"

They all gasped when the Asgardian and the thing he was fighting disappeared into thin air.

"I need to call my mum," Mal heard an intern say quietly.

And suddenly, she couldn't remember where Jemma said she and her field team were going to be that week. Her blood ran cold. She squeezed out of the office, her hand already dialing Jemma's phone number. It was the first call of many.

"C'mon, Jem," she muttered frantically, hopping on the tips of her toes nervously.

"_The person you are trying to call is not available. Please leave a message after the tone—" _

She didn't _want_ to leave a message; she wanted to know her friend hadn't been in London. There was a beep. "Jem, it's Mal. Please call me back and _please_ tell me you're not in London right now. Okay? As soon as you get this, _call me_."

It wasn't until the next day that she got a call back.

Mal stood in line at the café, one hand clutching her phone like a lifeline and the other nervously tapping her chin. She and Steve had agreed to meet for coffee again, long before the attack on London. He hadn't texted a word about the incident, so she just assumed that they were still on. For once in her life, though, she was early, so she used the opportunity to buy Steve's drink before he got there. After all, they had agreed that she'd pay this time. She was holding him to that promise.

When her phone rang that she jumped, jostling the person behind her. "Sorry, sorry," she muttered to the disgruntled agent, fumbling with the buttons and pressing the phone to her ear. "Jem?"

"_Hi!" _Considering the state she'd been in for the last 24 hours, Jemma sounded far too chipper to Mal.

"Holy shit, Jem, are you okay?" she asked anxiously. "Were you in London? Did you see what happened? How did—"

Simmons interrupted with a chuckle. _"Mal, we're _fine_. Take a deep breath."_ She complied noisily, so Jemma could hear her._ "We're in London now, but we've only just gotten here a few hours ago."_ Her voice became annoyed._ "We're on cleanup duty."_

Despite Jemma's obvious exasperation at getting assigned to custodial services, Mal sighed in relief. "Thank god," she said. Then she was angry. "I've been calling you for the past twenty-four hours! Did you drop your phone out of the plane? I was freaking out!"

"_Sorry; we've been a bit busy, though. I've barely had time to shower, let alone check my voicemail. Oh, I have so much to tell you—"_

"Ma'am?" She looked around and realized that she was at the front of the line, the barista politely trying to get her attention, the agent behind her looking ready to punch her lights out.

"Hold up, Jem," she muttered to her still babbling friend. Quickly, she ordered her drink—a triple pump mochacchino for her, a large black coffee for Steve—and stepped out of line.

Jemma stopped her stream of consciousness chatter for a second to ask curiously, _"Where are you?"_

She tucked her phone between her shoulder and cheek to grab her coffees off of the counter. "Triskelion café."

"_Oo, is it as nice as they say?"_

"Don't try to change the subject. You're in trouble, missy."

"_I really am sorry, Mal. You're alright, too, right?" _

She sat down at an empty table and smiled. "I'm fine." She paused and reiterated, "I'm really good. It's good to hear your voice, though."

"_Oh, you have no idea how great it is to hear yours. Fitz and I have missed you terribly."_

"I probably miss you more. It's been kind of hard making friends."

Jemma scoffed. _"I don't believe that you haven't already become friends with everyone there."_

She shrugged even though Jemma couldn't see her. "I've met some people, but pretty much everyone I work with has their own friends already. I don't really think they want to make room for more, you know?"

Jemma sighed. _"I know. We've been lucky—everyone on our team is in the same boat, so we've gotten pretty close."_

"I'm glad to hear that," she replied. She _was_ glad to hear that, she had to repeat to herself, so she knew she wasn't lying. A little jealous, but not so much that she couldn't hear how relieved Jemma was to have made friends.

"_You don't _have _to hang out with your coworkers, you know. I never thought I'd be good friends with a field agent, but we have a few on the Bus. Have you met any of them?"_

As if on cue, Steve sat down opposite of her, smiling at her in greeting. She returned it, holding up five fingers. _Five minutes?_ He nodded and pulled out his sketchbook. She shifted her attention back to her phone. "You know, technically, Jem, you're a field agent now."

She could almost hear her eyes rolling. _"Please. Not a proper field agent."_

"Yes, a proper field agent."

"_W-we don't do the guns or the 'pew-pew' or anything!"_

Mal nodded sagely. "The guns and the 'pew-pew' are integral, I'll admit." She saw Steve smirk at his drawing.

"_Now you're trying to change the subject."_

"I am. To answer your question: yes, I've met a few field agents." She didn't know how to bring up the fact that she'd been hanging out with Captain America with Steve sitting directly across from her, so she figured she'd keep it to herself for now. "They're lovely people."

"_Oh, don't generalize."_

Mal laughed at that. "I miss you," she said fondly.

"_I think you've said that already,"_ Jemma teased.

"I know." She bit her lip and glanced out the window. Her eyes were beginning to feel moist. "Jem?" she said, willing her voice not to crack. "I have to go. Can I call you tonight? I want to hear all about your adventures, straight from the source."

Jemma paused before answering. _"You know I would hate to pass up an opportunity to talk your ear off, but I might not be able to. Circumstances change so quickly in the field. I'll let you know via text."_

"Okay." She smiled softly. "Be careful. Love you."

"_Love _you._ Fitz says hello, by the way."_

Mal laughed. "Tell that cutie that I miss him too, alright? And say 'hi' to that new friend of yours—Skylar?"

"_Skye, and I will. We'll talk soon, I promise."_

"Yeah." She didn't believe her.

Jemma, the perceptive woman, heard the doubt in her voice. _"We will. I'll make sure of it."_

"Alright, alright. I really have to go."

"_Right, yes, of course. Bye, Mal."_

"Bye." She hung up and looked at Steve. "Sorry about that."

He set aside his sketchbook, waving off her apology. "No problem."

She explained anyway. "My friend's in the field right now, and I didn't know where she was yesterday, so…" she trailed off into contemplative silence. If Fitzsimmons had been in London…she shuddered at the thought.

He furrowed his brow. "Is she alright?" he asked kindly.

She nodded. "Yeah. She's in London now." She cocked her head and studied him. "To be honest, I'm a little surprised you're not there."

His expression darkened. "That makes two of us," he muttered, clearly not intending for her to hear him. But she did.

"You didn't get called in?" He shook his head, frowning. Clearly, this fact troubled him. "I'm sure there was a reason for it," she tried to reassure him.

He was not reassured. "No one's told me so far," he replied dryly, taking a sip of his coffee.

Now that she really looked at him, she saw it. He was unhappy—hunched forward with his head lowered towards his cup, a crinkle forming between his eyebrows. She didn't know the nature of his assignments, but she couldn't see how he could be successful on undercover jobs with his heart on his sleeve.

She tried again to soothe his nerves. Seeing Steve unhappy was sort of like seeing a golden retriever getting kicked. "You know," she started timidly, "The impression I got was that by the time anyone knew what was happening, it had already happened. You would've gotten there and it would've been over already. "

Steve was a million miles away, she sensed, and nowhere happy. She grimaced. She sucked at offering comfort. "And this isn't helping, is it?"

He shook his head—not in disagreement, but as if he was dragging himself out of deep thought. "No, you're trying. That's more than I'm doing. I've been…"

"Dour?" she offered.

Despite his mood, he smiled. "That's a charitable way of putting it. I guess it's…frustrating when London's falling and there's nothing you can do about it."

She snapped her fingers and pointed at him. "_London Calling_!" she said excitedly.

"I said, 'when London's falling'."

"No, it's an album. By the Clash." He did not follow. She gestured towards him vaguely. "You should add it to your—never mind. We're talking about you." She colored.

He let it go with nothing more than a weird look. "I just wish there was something I could do," he said quietly.

She shook her head. "Steve, you're overqualified to be dealing with battle aftermath. My friend has two PhDs, but she's sweeping up broken glass right now. I have no doubt that Director Fury has something more pressing for you to do."

He sighed heavily and replied, "Thanks." She knew that her words hadn't helped him, but he was clearly done talking about his sour mood. "So, what's your friend's name?"

"Jemma Simmons. She's been in the field for…" she started counting off her fingers. "…two months? Something like that."

He nodded and took a swig from his cup. "How do you two know each other?"

She smiled. "We were both biochem majors at SciTech."

"That's the S.H.I.E.L.D. academy, right?

"Yes—well, yes," she stumbled over her answer. When he quirked an eyebrow, she explained, "There are three S.H.I.E.L.D. academies."

He nodded. "Yeah, Nat told me there was a pretty fierce rivalry between them."

As she always did when anyone mentioned Natasha Romanoff, her cheeks flushed. "Agent Romanoff is correct, unfortunately," she said, shaking her head and sighing. "Anyway, we were friends all four years at the academy. And then we were interns together in San Fran for three and a half years until I applied for my own project and Jem and another friend requested a transfer to the field." Mal glanced down at the table. "So, this is longest we've gone apart since…ever. It's still pretty rough, being here without them."

When he was quiet, she nearly kicked herself. She didn't know how she could keep forgetting that this man had lost _all _of his friends. Just as she was about to apologize profusely, he said softly, "I can imagine," without a hint of condescension.

She stared at him. "Are you serious?"

"What?"

"I mean…are you even a real person?" He was bewildered. She clarified, "I have no right to be sitting here, bitching about my problems when your problems are basically my problems on steroids. Not to mention the fact that you're beating yourself up for _not_ being in London, even though that whole situation was completely out of your hands. Have you always been this good, or did the serum make you selfless?"

Halfway through her short tirade, his lips began to turn up in understanding. He picked at the cardboard sleeve on his cup of coffee and answered quietly, "Dr. Erskine said that the serum enhanced everything, not just my body. He said, 'Good becomes great; bad becomes worse.'"

She didn't remember reading that in the case study. Frankly, it sounded like some pre-hippie nonsense to Mal, but she wasn't about to tell him that. It was obvious to her that he had nothing but respect for the long deceased man.

He saw her wince and rushed to explain, "He said that he chose me because weak men know the value of strength, and they won't take it for granted." He shrugged. "And I haven't yet. Every time I'm out on assignment, I remember being that wimpy kid that couldn't back down from a fight and I'm thankful for my strength."

He was the most remarkable person she'd ever met.

And yet all she heard was the word 'fight'. "Did you used to get into a lot of fights?" she asked, a smile creeping onto her face.

He matched her expression, though he seemed a bit more sheepish than amused. "Uh, yeah. I…never won."

"Did you start them?"

He cleared his throat. "I never wanted to fight."

"That's a 'yes'," she muttered into her cup.

Now, he was positively glowing. Playfully tossing a crumpled up piece of napkin her way, he informed her, "I don't like bullies."

She shrugged. Mal had had a very limited experience with bullies, which had never made much sense to her. She was a bisexual Asian mutant with blue hair, and yet, in all of her twenty-six years, she rarely got more than a passing glance or a snide remark. She supposed she was lucky, but it did make her opinions on bullying seem a bit irrelevant to her. "I don't condone violence," she replied.

They stared at each other for a long moment, Steve looking like he was trying to decipher her. Finally, he leaned back in his chair and said, "I can't tell if you're joking."

"I'm not joking. Why would I be joking?"

He raised his eyebrows. "Because you work for S.H.I.E.L.D.?" he asked incredulously. "It's not exactly known for its diplomacy."

She sighed and turned her head towards the window beside them. "I'm aware of the irony," she told the glass pane wryly. "A pacifist working for—for all intents and purposes—a military organization? I could write a thousand-page book explaining the cognitive dissonance of the fact. And the truth is, I disagree with most of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s operations."

She was quiet for a second. He prompted her, asking, "But…?"

"But I can excuse it," she said wearily. "That's not a great thing to say, is it? But it's true. In my profession, ethical oversight is more important than 'fighting the power'," she put up air quotes, "or whatever. Like, being a pacifist in every sense of the word is not as important to me as my work and, in my work, I want to know that there isn't someone trying to steal my research for nefarious purposes.

"And yeah, government agencies aren't really known for their transparency, but neither are corporations. I would rather work for a shady government organization than a shady private organization, because a least there's a tiny _scrap—"_ she squinted through the gap between her thumb and forefinger, "—of accountability in the government."

Steve tilted his head. "Yeah, I get your point."

She shrugged. "But then again, I don't really understand how the government works. I mean, I'm vaguely aware of whom the current president is and I'm pretty sure I voted for him."

"Matthew Ellis," Steve said automatically.

"The name rings a bell; my point being that's about the extent of my knowledge," she concluded. "I'm, like, the quintessentially average voter: I have no idea what's going on, but I'm mad as hell about it." She punched her hand. "Ouch."

He laughed and she joined him. When they settled down, he asked, "So, can I ask what your project is?"

She scoffed. "Are you kidding? I've talked people to _death_ about my project."

"And here I thought you were a pacifist."

She shook her head, pursing her lips to control her smile. "You're hilarious," she said archly.

A sudden _beep!_ made them both jump in their seats. She reached into her coat pocket for her phone, but there was no message. When she glanced back up at him, he was frowning down at his phone.

"Trouble at the mill?" she asked.

He didn't justify her stupid joke with an actual answer. "It's Fury. I have to go," he told her, standing and sweeping his sketchbook into his backpack. Coffee in one hand and phone in the other, he grimaced down at her. "Sorry about this."

She waved off his apology and gave him a cheeky smile. She was glad she was right about Fury; Steve looked like he could use a good, long mission to work out some of his pent-up energy. "Go save the world," she ordered seriously. Then as a joke, she added, "Bring me back a souvenir."

He snorted and rolled his eyes. "Yes, ma'am."

Before he could make his retreat, she said, "I told you Fury had something for you."

He smiled good-naturedly. "You're always right."

She raised her cup in a toast to his statement. "Never forget it."

He held up his cup to her one more time before he left. And then she was alone with her thoughts.

It was probably for the best that he was called away before she could talk in length about her project. She doubted his clearance level was below hers—being Captain America and all—but the fewer people who asked questions about her research, the less likely she was to be discovered as a mutant.

She hated hiding a part of herself. But how many stories about mutants exposing their abilities had she heard? Too many to count. From all of those cases, Mal had no doubt that if one of her superiors found out about her mutation, she'd be getting a pink slip. The official reason wouldn't be because she had an accelerated healing factor, but she would know the lie.

_My identity is not as important to me as my work,_ she recited, biting her lip. It never had been. Hell, no facet of her identity had ever meant as much to her as being a scientist did.

She wasn't a bisexual. She wasn't a Hawaiian-Japanese-Norwegian-American. She wasn't a mutant.

_I'm a goddamn scientist._ And she'd be damned before she let her mutation get in the way of that.

* * *

**Woo, this took forever to write and I'm still not happy with it. It was one of those chapters that sounds great in your head, but kind of sucks on paper. I wanted to talk a little bit about _Thor: The Dark World_ because I always wonder what the other superheroes are thinking when this stuff happens.**

**And side note: my birthday is in a few days! and a great b-day present from you would be a lovely review! Even though this chap was kind of shit. Anyway, let me know what you thought of it, or the story in general. **


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